Bengaluru, Feb 12 (IANS): Australian Aleksandar Vukic, currently-ranked 138th in the world, will carry the tag of the top seed in the Bengaluru Open 2 ATP Challenger which begins here on Monday, with the first round of the qualifiers slated for Sunday.

In a novel initiative by the KSLTA, four of the top U-12 tennis players from Karnataka -- Srishti Kiran and Aylin Miriyum (U-12 girls) and Sanjay Girish Kumar and Ishan Badami (U-12 boys) were the 'chief guests' of the draw ceremony where they picked the coins for both the singles and doubles draw.

The 25-year-old Vukic has been drawn against India's Prajnesh Gunneswaran in the opening round.

Meanwhile, India's new No.1 Ramkumar Ramanathan has been seeded seventh and has drawn Mathias Bourgue of France in his first encounter.

Frenchmen Hugo Grenier ranked 158th, and 161st ranked Enzo Couacaud are seeded second and third respectively, while Italian Federico Gaio is seeded fourth. Vit Kopriva of the Czech Republic, Australian Max Purcell and Taipei's Chun-Hsin Tseng bring up the rear of the seeds.

The qualifying rounds will be held on Sunday and Monday.