Srinath and Fazaluddin, India's No 3 and 4, cannot even get to the qualifiers as they are busy over the weekend with the Davis Cup tie against China in Calcutta.

It will be the second year in a row when Davis Cup duties have forced Fazaluddin to miss out on the qualifiers for the Chennai ATP event. Wild cards were given last year to Wesley Whitehouse (ranked 300) and Brian Phau (421) apart from Bhupathi.

Tournament director Brian Cooney said in a press release that Stark has participated in every tournament played here -- in 1996, '97 and '98 -- and is one ofthe only five players to have played in every singles main draw. Stark was injured last year and had to pull out.

Vinciguerra was a finalist at the 1998 junior Australian Open. He was ranked four on the International Tennis Federation (ITF) world junior rankings list. He won the European Junior Championships and the Swedish Championships, in addition to five other junior events last year.

The Swede is represented by the International Management Group, who manage the annual $ 4,35,000 Chennai event.

Media reports last week had already mentioned Vinciguerra's name as a candidate for the card. But media manager Craig Gabriel had refuted suggestions that Vinciguerra's name had been decided upon three months back, saying the decision will be made only on Friday.