ITF Women's Tennis: Top seed Zeel ousts Shrivalli; sets up final against Germany's Emily Seibold

Zeel handled the crunch better even though she had failed to serve out the first set at 5-4.

In the final, Zeel will play third seed Emily Seibold of Germany who beat Akanksha Nitture for the loss of four games.

Top seed Zeel Desai beat Shrivalli Bhamidipaty 7-5, 7-5 in the semifinals of the $15,000 ITF women’s tennis tournament at the Ace Academy on Saturday.

It was the first victory in two meetings for Zeel over Shrivalli in the professional circuit. Zeel handled the crunch better even though she had failed to serve out the first set at 5-4.

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In the second set, Zeel broke for 6-5 and served out the match at love.

In the final, Zeel will play third seed Emily Seibold of Germany who beat Akanksha Nitture for the loss of four games. In the doubles final, Anna Ureke and Punnin Kovapitukted combined well to beat Sharmada Balu and Sravya Shivani 6-3, 6-1. It was the second title in three finals for the Russian-Thai pair in the current series in India.  

The results: Singles (semifinals) : Zeel Desai bt Shrivalli Bhamidipaty 7-5, 7-5; Emily Seibold (Ger) bt Akanksha Nitture 6-3, 6-1. Doubles (final) : Anna Ureke (Rus) & Punnin Kovapitukted (Tha) bt Sharmada Balu & Sravya Shivani 6-3, 6-1.