The Hindu : Rushmi to lead Indian challenge

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Feb 17, 2003

Sport

Sport - Tennis

Rushmi to lead Indian challenge

BANGALORE Feb. 16. The ITF women's circuit caravan rolled into Bangalore for the second and last event of the Tour. The Indians can look forward to better display at the KSLTA Stadium from Monday.

The Indian show was disappointing at Chennai against raw but talented foreign contenders. The saving grace was Samrita Sekhar, who made it to the quarterfinals. But the change in ambience to a cooler venue and a synthetic surface should suit them better.

The fact that Chennai finalists, winner Suchanan Viratprasert of Thailand and the runner-up, Varana Mar Beller of Germany, are not going to be around for this championship, throws the contest open and the Indians can fancy their chances.

Rushmi Chakravarthi, ranked 382, leads the Indian challenge which includes seasoned stars like Sai Jayalakshmi, Sheetal Goutham, Radhika Tulpule, Sonal Phadke, Shruthi Dhawan and Archana Venkatraman, besides the talented juniors like Isha Lakhani, Megha Vakaria, Samrita Sekhar, Geetha Manohar and Iciri Rai.

Rushmi, who is in the top half, opens her campaign against qualifier Kim Sun Jin of Korea while Liza Pereira, who for the second straight time made the main draw after slugging through the qualifying rounds, takes on Diana Julianto of Indonesia, who was a quarterfinalist at Chennai.

Radhika Tulpule meets another Thai contender Tangphong. An interesting contest in the opening round in this half is between the two Bangalore girls Iciri Rai and Arthi Venkatraman.

In the bottom half, Samrita Sekhar has a tough opener against Isha Lakhani and so does Sheetal Goutham, who meets Akgul Amanmarudova of Uzbekiistan, who made the quarterfinals at Chennai.

Another interesting clash could be one between the second seed Natalia Dziamidzenka of Belarus and Elena Vesnina of Russia, who was a semifinalist in the first tournament.

The championship at Bangalore, which is being sponsored by Reliance, was to be held at Dharwad. But the synthetic courts were not ready in time and hence the tournament was moved to Bangalore.

The seedings: 1. Rushmi Chakravarthi, 2. Natalia Dziamidzenka (Blrs), 3. Sai Jayalakshmi, 4. Eva Hoch (Aut), 5. Akgul Amanmuradova (Uzb), 6. Radhika Tulpule, 7. Sonal Phakde, 8. Wilawan Choptang (Thai).

The results (qualifying final round): Ivanna Israliova (Uzb) bt Ashleesha Lokhande 6-3, 6-2; Liza Pereira bt Asha Nandakumar 6-4, 7-5; Kim Su Jin (Kor) bt Orawan Lamangthong (Thai) 6-4, 3-6, 6-4; Julia Vorobieva (Rus) bt Olga Panova (Rus) 6-3, 6-3; Saiswapna bt Si Ng Lee (HK) 6-1, 6-3; Ryoko Watanabe (Jpn) bt Varsha Shivashankar 7-5, 7-6 (7-4); Arthi Venkatraman bt Jung Yoon Shin (Kor) 7-6 (7-3), 6-3; Elena Vesnina (Rus) bt Elena Volobueva (Rus) 6-3, 6-3.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Sport