Date:14/03/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/03/14/stories/2008031460992300.htm

Sport - Tennis

Sunitha loses to Dzehalevich

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: On another pleasant day that had a brief but welcome spell of showers before the doubles matches, Ekaterina Dzehalevich of Belarus emerged a 7-5, 6-2 victor over the seventh-seeded Sunitha Rao in the quarterfinals of the ITF women’s tennis tournament at the DLTA Complex here on Thursday.

Dzehalevich, who had ousted the second-seeded Mathilde Johansson of France earlier, played only marginally better than Sunitha, who didn’t seem to be decisive enough with her game plan.

The 22-year-old Sunitha did make the doubles final as the second seed with Aurelie Vedy of France later in the day, but that was no consolation for the US-based girl as she had a good chance of adding invaluable WTA points by making the singles semifinals.

The problem with Sunitha was that her shots lacked the sting to beat the retrieving capacity of her gutsy opponent who stymied her net-rushing opponent by lobbing.

Besides, Sunitha’s volleying was not crisp enough. She was quick on court but not quick enough to beat a crafty opponent who had the shots to exasperate her.

Falling apart

After an early exchange of breaks, Sunitha was in command, serving for the first set at 5-4, having broken the 209th ranked Belarussian at love in the ninth game.

However, after smacking a rousing winner on the first point while serving for the set, Sunitha allowed her game to disintegrate and dropped serve with a double-fault.

It was a string of errors that saw Sunitha losing the edge in that tenth game that saw the momentum shift.

Instead of fighting it out, Sunitha allowed her errors to eat into her confidence, and it was no surprise that she lost the next five games on the trot.

There was a semblance of revival when Sunitha held serve twice but she could not stay afloat for long and dropped serve in the eighth game of the second set to put herself out of her self-inflicted misery.

Her singles effort was worth nine WTA points and $1235. She stands to gain 35 WTA points by winning the doubles final on Friday evening.

The Indo-French duo will take on the Chinese top-seeds, Chun-Mei Ji and Sheng-Nan Sun who ousted the Uberoi sisters, Shikha and Neha, in straight sets.

The results: Singles (quarterfinals): Naomi Cavaday (GBR) bt Carmen Klaschka (Ger) 3-6, 6-1, 6-4; Yanina Wickmayer (Bel) bt Chanelle Scheepers (RSA) 6-7(5), 6-3, 6-3; Margit Ruutel (Est) bt Aniko Kapros (Hun) 6-4, 6-3; Ekaterina Dzehalevich (Blr) bt Sunitha Rao 7-5, 6-2.

Doubles (semifinals): Chun-Mei Ji & Sheng-Nan Sun (Chn) bt Neha Uberoi (US) & Shikha Uberoi 7-5, 6-3; Aurelie Vedy (Fra) & Sunitha Rao bt Veronika Chvojkova & Andrea Hlavackova (Cze) 7-5, 7-5.