Date:19/11/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/11/19/stories/2008111961601900.htm

Sport - Tennis

Sunitha Rao in pre-quarterfinals

Principal Correspondent

KOLKATA: Fifth seeded Sunitha Rao, blew away her American opponent Alexis Prousis 6-0, 6-2, to ease into the pre-quarterfinals of the Gujarat NRE Coke $50,000 ITF women’s Challenger at the BTA Complex here on Monday.

The other Indian in the fray, Shikha Uberoi made too many errors before bowing out to seventh seeded Ksenia Palkina of Kazakhstan.

Most of the seeded players including top seeded Melanie South (Great Britain) and second seeded Ayumi Morita (Japan) moved into the next round.

Two upsets

There were two upsets in the form of third seeded Chin-Wei Chan of Chinese Taipei and sixth seeded Liana-Gabriela Ungur of RomaniaSunitha, who is trying to make a return after a string of reverses in the previous months, played a wide array of shots and impressed with her fitness before powering her way to an impressive win.

The results:

Singles: First round: Melanie South (Gbr) bt Jing-Jing Lu (Chn) 7-5, 6-3; Elora Dabija (Rou) bt Angelika Roesch (Ger) 6-7(5-7), 6-2, 6-2; Leonie Mekel (Ned) bt Liana-Gabriela Ungur (Rou) 6-3, retd..

Julia Glushko (Isr) bt Silvia Disderi (Isr) 6-2, 6-3; Ksenia Palkina (Kgz) bt Shikha Uberoi (Ind) 6-2, 6-3; Chia-Jung Chuang (Tpe) bt I-Hsuan Hwang (Tpe) 6-1, 6-2; Bojana Jovanovski (Srb) bt Chin-Wei Chan (Tpe) 6-1, 6-2; Sunitha Rao (Ind) bt Alexis Prousis (USA) 6-0, 6-2.

Emily Webley-Smith (Gbr) bt Florence Haring (Fra) 7-5, 6-4; Ayumi Morita (Jpn) bt Laura Siegemund (Ger) 6-1, 6-2.

Doubles: First round: Kai-Chen Chang & I-Hsuan Hwang (Tpe) bt Prerana-Mythri Appineni (Ind) & Sanduska Patrycja (Rou) 6-4, 6-1; Sophie Ferguson (Aus) & Alexis Prousis (USA) bt Iulia Kiriienko (Ukr) & Inna Kuzmenko (Rus) 6-3, 7-6(7).