Sixth seed Prarthana Thombare halted the undefeated run of Prerna Bhambri with a 6-4, 6-4 victory in the quarterfinals of the $10,000 ITF women’s tennis tournament at the VIP’s Club courts on Thursday.
The 23-year-old Prerna had won the national championship in Delhi for the fourth successive time earlier in the month, and went on to win both the singles and doubles titles on grass in Lucknow. Along the way, Prerna had beaten Prarthana in straight sets in the semi-finals, and it was time for the Asian Games doubles medallist to pay back.
The 21-year-old Prarthana broke Prerna’s serve in the seventh game of the first set and fifth game of the second, to sail into the semi-finals. She saved three breakpoints along the way to ensure that there was no recovery for Prerna who struggled with her serve and committed a dozen double faults.
Prerna, had the consolation of making the doubles final with Rishika Sunkara, and the duo would challenge the top seeds Sharrmadaa Baluu and Prarthana Thombare.
In the singles semi-finals, Prarthana will face third seed Natasha Palha, who recovered from a bad start to outclass Sharrmadaa 3-6, 6-1, 6-1 in two hours and 16 minutes.
Top seed Rishika Sunkara also bounced back from being down 1-4, and won the next 11 games on the trot, to dismiss Sri Vaishnavi Peddi Reddy. She will be challenged by Eetee Maheta who stopped the fine run of qualifier, Hsin-Yuan Shih of Chinese Taipei, the only foreign entrant in the field, in straight sets.
In Toronto, Karman Kaur Thandi fought well against top seed Tatjana Maria of Germany before being beaten 6-4, 6-3 in the pre-quarterfinals of the $50,000 ITF women’s tennis tournament.
The 17-year-old Karman, who converted the only breakpoint that came her way in the whole match, dropped serve four times. Her efforts fetched her 11 WTA points, including three for making it to the third and final qualifying round.
Meanwhile, in the $10,000 ITF women’s event in Tunisia, Kyra Shroff made the quarterfinals, and will challenge Kassandra Davesne of France who had beaten the top seed Margarita Lazareva of Russia.
Results
Singles (quarter-finals): Rishika Sunkara bt Sri Vaishnavi Peddi Reddy 6-4, 6-0; Eetee Maheta bt Hsin-Yuan Shih (Tpe) 6-3, 6-3; Natasha Palha bt Sharrmadaa Baluu 3-6, 6-1, 6-1; Prarthana Thombare bt Prerna Bhambri 6-4, 6-4.
Doubles (semi-finals): Sharrmadaa Baluu & Prarthana Thombare bt Rushmi Chakravarthi & Natasha Palha 6-4, 6-1; Prerna Bhambri & Rishika Sunkara bt Nidhi Chilumula & Dhruthi Venugopal 6-3, 7-6(5).
$50,000 ITF women, Toronto, Canada
Singles (pre quarter-finals): Tatjana Maria (Ger) bt Karman Kaur Thandi 6-4, 6-3.
$10,000 ITF women, El Kantaoui, Tunisia
Singles (pre quarter-finals): Kyra Shroff bt Fiona Codino (Fra) 6-3, 6-2.
$10,000 ITF men, Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt
Doubles (pre quarter-finals): Luke Bambridge & Richard Gabb (GBR) bt Leo Julien Sebaoun (Jpn) & Sasi Kumar Mukund 6-3, 6-1.
Comments
SHARE