GOLD FLAKE OPEN 2001

The final day of the Gold Flake Open 2001 had no Indian flavour to it, with Bhupathi and Paes being ousted by Cowan and Navarra in the doubles semifinals.  And yet, the stadium was filled almost to capacity for the finals; a tribute to the sporting spirit of Chennai tennis fans that was best captured in the words of doubles victor Byron Black, “Thanks for coming in guys.  It’s nice to see such a big crowd, without Leander and Mahesh playing”.

In a tournament, which has traditionally favoured qualifiers and wildcards, the fifth edition of the Gold Flake Open was no different.  In fact the phenomenon was even more pronounced this year. Wildcard Taylor Dent of the United States, dented the reputation of top seed for the tournament, Magnus Norman of Sweden, in straight sets. Michal Tabara, ranked 96 in the world, won the singles crown!  In what was his first career final the 21 year old Czech player, played some fine forehands (what he considers his best shot) to beat Russian, Andrei Stoliarov who was playing in Chennai for the first time.  

GFO is indeed a platform for wildcards, as Ravi Krishnan, Joint Managing Director of TWI-South Asia put it.  "These players are scouted by IMG's international tennis divisions all around the world and have the legitimate talent to perform on an international platform. The past performance of our wild cards has shown that".

Most of the players who have been given wild cards to this tournament have done well, both in Chennai and around the world. Andreas Vinviguerra, who came as a wildcard entrant in 1999, had a breakthrough year and returned in 2000 as the number eight seed. This year "Vinci" was back as the sixth seed with a world ranking of 55. Last year, both the doubles finalists Julien Boutter (France)/Christophe Rochus (Belgium) and Indians Saurav Panja/Prahlad Srinath were wildcard entrants. Boutter and Rochus went on to win the doubles title.

This year was a disappointing year for the Indians in the singles, with Paes playing what was probably his worst match against Tommy Robredo and both the wildcards Mahesh and Fazaluddin taking their bow early in the draw. For the first time in the history of the tournament, none of the seeds lasted even upto the semi-finals.

Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi have appeared most often in the singles draw, while Byron Black and Jerome Golmard have been the players who have been seeded the most number of times in the event.  The best Indian effort in the singles was by Leander Paes who reached the singles semi final in 1998.  In the doubles it has been an all-Indian affair for the past four editions with Bhupathi/Paes pair winning the doubles title in 1997, '98 and '99.  Panja and Prahlad were runners-up in 2000. 

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