The Hindu : Deepa overcomes Radhika Mandke

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, May 28, 2002

Sport

Sport - Tennis

Deepa overcomes Radhika Mandke

By Kamesh Srinivasan

CHANDIGARH MAY 27. She has been trying to make the breakthrough for some time. Deepa Chakrabarty found that elusive big win, after many close defeats, as she beat Radhika Mandke 4-6, 6-4, 6-0 in the first round of the $5000 ITF women's circuit tennis tournament at the CLTA Complex here on Monday.

Rallying from the backcourt on a hot morning, Deepa was able to overpower the 21-year-old left-hander in the later part of the match as the latter stopped moving. Radhika had emphasised her game by winning one of the legs of a similar circuit last year.

Deepa will, however, have the unenviable task of playing the fifth-seeded Ankita Bhambri, who is bubbling with confidence following her title in the Masters event of the last circuit recently. Moreover, the international competition in the Junior Fed Cup in Jakarta has given sufficient exposure for Ankita, to tackle the Indian opposition at home.

The 15-year-old Ankita did go through moments of loose play during her match against the gutsy Sandra Sasidharan, but pulled through in straight sets under the floodlights in the evening.

Priyanka Parekh stroked well on either flank to outwit the wild card entrant Nandita Chandrasekar who returned to the circuit after an injury lay-off.

The 16-year-old Priyanka saved a setpoint in the first set tie-break, and converted her eighth matchpoint in a long-drawn tenth game of the second set, before heaving a huge sigh of relief. Nandita was up 4-1 in the second set, but could not get her game together, basically because of rusty play.

The second-seeded Radhika Tulpule started well, but was down 2-5 in the second set against the free-stroking Rati Kumar who moved better after losing the first set at love. However, the 20-year-old Pune lass played better once the second set of new balls were put to use, after 13 games by mistake, instead of 11 games, in reeling off the last five games.

Radhika will run into the big serving and hard-stroking girl, the 16-year-old Iciri Rai, who converted her fourth matchpoint in beating Nandini Perumal in the second set tie-break.

Geeta Manohar put out the only foreign entrant, Olexandra Verkhnyatska of Ukraine, for the loss of five games, much to the chagrin of a bunch of local boys who were cheering the foreigner.

Samrita Sekar was in fine touch, hitting winners with considerale poise against the software engineer from Banglaore, Arthi Venkataraman. The latter made a fight of it in the second set, but the 17-year-old Samrita retained her concentration to win in straight sets.

Fourth-seeded Shruti Dhawan had to play lucky-loser Nivedita Venkatesh, as wild card entrant Amandeep Kaur faild to report. Naina Karsolia was not available to avail of the lucky-loser spot, which was worth a minimum of 2315 rupees, and thus Nivedita became really lucky, to get the money for extracting a solitary game from Shruti.

Seventh-seeded Liza Pereira also had a lucky-loser to play, and cruised through for the loss of one game, to set up a pre-quarterfinal with Preeti Rao who sweated it out in three sets against qualifier Priyanka Mehta.

The results (first round): Sonal Phadke bt Reddhina Parekh 6-2, 6-4; Kamini Murugaboopathy bt Alice Joy 6-3, 6-0; Priyanka Parekh bt Nandita Chandrasekar 7-6 (9-7), 6-4; Samrita Sekar bt Arthi Venkataraman 6-2, 7-5; Sheethal Goutham bt Sharanya Pattabi 6-1, 6-2; Geeta Manohar bt Olexandra Verkhnyatska (Ukr) 6-2, 6-3; Preeti Rao bt Priyanka Mehta 4-6, 6-4, 6-1, Liza Pereira bt Khushleen Bains 6-1, 6-0; Ankita Bhambri bt Sandra Sasidharan 6-3, 6-4; Deepa Chakrabarty bt Radhika Mandke 4-6, 6-4, 6-0; Medhini Sharma bt Bharathy Parthasarathy 6-0, 6-4; Shruti Dhawan bt Nivedita Venkatesh 6-0, 6-1; Archana Venkataraman bt Parul Goswami 6-1, 6-2; Lata Assudani bt Vishika Chhetri 6-2, 6-0; Iciri Rai bt Nandini Perumal 6-1, 7-6 (7-2); Radhika Tulpule bt Rati Kumar 6-1, 7-5.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Sport