The Hindu : Amoolya ousts Asha

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Apr 18, 2002

Sport

Sport - Tennis

Amoolya ousts Asha

By Our Special Correspondent

BANGALORE APRIL 17. Amoolya Raghunath and Asha Nandakumar are familiar foes on the local circuit. But head-to-head Asha always had the better of the exchanges. But today that equation was blasted by Amoolya.

Taking the court as the top-seed in the Girls under 16 singles pre-quarterfinals of the South Zone AITA Junior ranking tournament at the Century Club courts, Asha Nandakumar paid a heavy price for being too erratic in a closely contested encounter to let Amoolya have her say at last with a 7-6, 6-4 victory.

If Amoolya was short on self-belief in most of her earlier defeats, she was a different individual on court today.

Her choice of staying on in the rallies more than dictating either its pace or course helped her to keep Asha busy all the time.

With Asha's own game wavering at crucial junctures, Amoolya had the best possible chance to better her own dismal record against Asha.

With the top seed out of the way, second seeded K.A.Swathy appeared to be in ominous form as she dismissed T.Shhravya of Andhra Pradesh in quick time.

Mesheer Vaswani of Karnataka was the only seeded casualty in the boys under 16 singles pre quarterfinals.

The eighth seed went down rather tamely to Siddharth Hande of Tamil Nadu.

The results.

Boys Under 14 (Pre-quarterfinals): R. K. Praveen (Kar) bt Yesh Bafna (Kar) 6-3, 6-0, Siddarth Hande (TN) bt R. Rohit (Kar) 6-2, 6-0, Kaushik S. Raju (Kar) bt Manish Rao (Kar) 6-2, 6-4, Sujith Sachidanand (Kar) bt Sriram Balaji (TN) 6-1, 6-3.

N. S. Mangal (TN) bt Karthik Desai (AP) 6-3, 6-4, Mesheer Vaswani (Kar) bt Navanneeth Kannan 7-6, 6-2, J. Shravan Kumar (TN) bt M.P.Sukumar (TN) 6-2, 6-1, K. H. Praveen (AP) bt Suraj A. M (Kar) 6-2, 6-0.

Boys Under 16 (Pre-quarterfinals): Manu Bajpai (Kar) bt Farhaad Virjee (Kar) 6-3, 6-1, M. Fariz (TN) bt Bharath K.Mohan (TN) 6-1, 6-4, Hari Prasath (TN) bt J.Dhritiman (TN) 6-3, 6-3, Dhruv Sunder (Kar) bt Suraj Bikkannavar (Kar) 6-3, 6-2.

Siddarth Hande (TN) bt Mesheer Vaswani (Kar) 6-4, 6-0. Shishir S. Patil (Kar) bt N. S. Mangal (TN) 6-2, 6-4, Prateek (Kar) bt V. Kaushik (Kar) 6-1, 6-1.R. K. Praveen (Kar) bt Kaushik S.Raju (Kar) 4-6, 6-3, 6-1.

Girls Under 14 singles (Pre-quarterfinals): Shwetha G. K. (Kar) bt C. Lekha (TN) 6-0, 6-0, Amoolya Raghunath (Kar) bt Janani Suresh (AP) 6-2, 6-2, Poojashree (Kar) bt Akshita B. Raj (Kar) 6-0, 6-4, Janaki S. Rao (AP) bt Archana V. (TN) 6-1, 6-2.

Unnati Purushotham (AP) bt N. Venkatalakshmi (TN) 7-5, 6-1. Supriyas (Kar) bt S. Krithika (TN) 7-6, 6-3, Sanjanna Gopal (Kar) bt K. R. Subhashree (TN) 6-4, 6-1, Kanimozhi (TN) bt Anushree Thammanna (Kar) 6-2, 6-4.

Girls Under-16 singles (Pre-quarterfinals): K. A. Swathy (TN) bt T .Shravya (AP) 6-0, 6-3, Amoolya Raghunath (Kar) bt Asha Nandakumar (Kar) 7-6, 6-4, Shwetha G. K. (Kar) bt Akshita B. Raj (Kar) 7-5, 6-1, Oormila Ram (AP) bt Adith Priyadarshini (Kar) 6-2, 6-1, Prerana Mythri (AP) Archana Prasad (Kar) 6-4, 6-3.

Arathi Duraiswamy (TN) bt Anushree Thammanna (Kar) 6-2, 4-6, 6-3, Laasya (Kar) bt Divya Vijaykumar (Kar) 7-5, 2-6, 6-2, Poojashree (Kar) bt Sanjana Gopal (Kar) 6-2, 6-0

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Sport