The Hindu : Sport / Tennis : Archana prevails over Sai

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Feb 02, 2006

Sport

Sport - Tennis

Archana prevails over Sai

Kamesh Srinivasan

MUZAFFARNAGAR: Archana Venkataraman tamed the fourth-seeded Sai Jayalakshmy 7-5, 2-6, 6-2 in the pre-quarterfinals of the Bhavna Swarup memorial ITF women's tennis tournament at the Services Club grass courts here on Wednesday.

Archana started off on a bright note, racing to a 5-0 lead and wound up reeling off the last six games after being down 0-2 in the decider.

In between, the 28-year-old Sai stroked brilliantly to showcase her ability, especially in fighting back to be on par at 5-5 in the first set, breaking back thrice, but was perhaps a step behind in executing her strokes to gain a stranglehold over the proceedings.

What undid Sai's revival was the fact that she served two doublefaults from 15-30 in the 11th game of the first set, and Archana wrested the initiative as she served out the first set with calm assurance.

After an early exchange of breaks, a determined Sai fought hard to level the match and was comfortably placed in the decider following a break in the second game, but the doublefaults continued to plague her as 11 of them saw her bow meekly to her doubles partner. It was the third victory in seven meetings for Archana over Sai in the international circuit, and she will next challenge the finalist of last week, the eighth-seeded Ksenia Palkina of Kyrgyzstan.

Palkina was in a spot of bother against the power-play of the tall Asha Nandakumar, but the latter lacked the self-belief after winning the first set and went down without much of a fight. An early break in the decider proved adequate for the 16-year-old Palkina who served six aces, including one on matchpoint, but generally found it hard to tackle the big serves of Asha who also fired six aces.

Meanwhile, the favourite Ankita Bhambri had to retire after three games against the 15-year-old Prerna Mythri owing to a painful elbow. Ankita had won the first two games, dropping a mere two points, but Prerna had just held serve when the Delhi girl expressed her inability to continue because of excruciating pain on her swoller right elbow.

The results:

Singles (pre-quarterfinals): Prerna Mythri bt Ankita Bhambri 1-2 (retired); Paarul Goswami bt Martina Caciotti (Ita) 6-4, 6-1; Archana Venkataraman bt Sai Jayalakshmy 7-5, 2-6, 6-2; Ksenia Palkina (Kgz) bt Asha Nandakumar 4-6, 6-2, 6-4; Sandhya Nagaraj bt Parija Maloo 4-6, 6-1, 6-1; Megha Vakharia bt Geeta Manohar 6-2, 6-2; Czarina Mae Arevalo (Phi) bt Madura Ranganathan 6-4, 6-2; Nicole Clerico (Ita) bt Krushmi Chheda 6-2, 6-1.

Doubles (quarterfinals): Oormila Ram and Ragini Vimal w.o. Ankita Bhambri and Sandhya Nagaraj; Wei Ping Lee (Sin) and Lavinia Tananta Hartono (Ina) bt Sandri Gangothri and Asha Nandakumar 7-5, 6-1; Sai Jayalakshmy and Archana Venkataraman bt Vandana Murali and Sonal Phadke 6-1, 6-3; Nicole Clerico (Ita) and Ksenia Palkina (Kgz) bt Vishika Chhetri and Yamini Thukkaiandi 6-4, 6-2.

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