Top 20 Argentine Aiming for Heineken Open Title
One of the most consistent players on the ATP circuit has confirmed his appearance at January’s 2008 Heineken Open featuring the Sovereign singles and doubles.
Argentina’s Juan Ignacio Chela the current world No20. Chela has a career-high ranking of 15 which he achieved in August 2004 and has finished in the top-40 rankings for the sixth consecutive year. His career prizemoney is just under US$4.5million.
He will take the court at the ASB Tennis Centre hoping to better his quarter-final appearance in 2007.
A year that included winning one title and making the semis of two tournaments as well as the quarters of six other events puts Chela up with the best in the world when it comes to consistency.
The fact three of the quarters were at Masters Series events – Miami, Rome where he beat Andy Roddick but lost to Fernando Gonzalez and Indian Wells. Making the quarters at Miami and Indian Wells proved that the Argentine is more than just a claycourt player and that he can than handle fast servers as well.
Although the efforts at the Masters events were highlights the big results came at the US Open where the 28-year-old reached the last eight with a five set win over Ivan Ljubicic in the third round followed by another five set win, this time against Stanislas Wawrinka.
Eventually he lost to David Ferrer in the quarters, the second occasion he had gone that far in a Grand Slam, the first being in 2004 at Roland Garros.
At the 2007 Heineken Open he was a quarter-finalist beating Nicolas Mahut in the first round and Nicolas Massu in the second before falling to Mardy Fish in two tie breaks.
Other success in 2007 came at Costa Do Sauipe (Brazil) and Stuttgart where he was a semifinalist at both events along with quarters finishes at Vienna and Buenos Aires.
His best form of the year was early on where he made the quarters at the Heineken Open the third round of the Australian Open then at his next event at Costa Do Sauipe he was a semifinalist. There was a quarter-finalist appearance at Buenos Aires the next week and then the title at Acapulco to finish his start to the year the following week.
He has four career singles titles to his name including winning at Acapulco where he defeated Carlos Moya in the final. Previous titles were at Estoril in 2004, Amersfoort 2002 and Mexico City 2000.
“Chela is the third top twenty player to sign for the 2008 Heineken Open and enters the tournament playing at the top of his game following a very successful year. He enjoys the Auckland environment and we look forward to seeing him competition along with his vocal Argentinean supporters”, says Heineken Open tournament director, Graham Pearce.
The Heineken Open featuring the Sovereign singles and doubles will be held at the ASB Tennis Centre, January 7 – 12, 2008 with the first two days of qualifying January 5 – 6, 2008 at the Albany Tennis Park, Oteha Valley Road, Albany starting at 10am each day.
The 2008 tournament will feature live scoring as well as live streaming of play and audio podcasts.
