India to fight it out with Philippines

April 18, 2015 02:26 am | Updated 02:26 am IST - HYDERABAD:

Though she faced pockets of resistance from Anastasiya Prenko, Ankita Raina held her nerve to win with relative ease. Photo: Mohammed Yousuf

Though she faced pockets of resistance from Anastasiya Prenko, Ankita Raina held her nerve to win with relative ease. Photo: Mohammed Yousuf

India advanced to the final of the BNP Paribas Federation Cup Asia-Oceania Group II tennis championship with a 2-0 verdict over Turkmenistan at the Sports Authority of Telangana State (SATS) Tennis complex here on Friday.

In Saturday’s showdown for entry into Group I, India will play top seed Philippines, a 2-1 winner over Indonesia.

Prarthana Thombare steamrollered Jahan Bayramova 6-0, 6-2, while Ankita Raina faced pockets of resistance before defeating Anastasiya Prenko 6-1, 6-2.

The captains of the two teams then decided by mutual consent not to the play the doubles.

Turkmenistan, ranked 63 in the world against India’s 68, turned out to be superior only on paper.

The first set was gifted away to Prarthana on a platter. Bayramova scored her first point in only the fourth game, after 15 had gone Thombare’s way!

Bayramova’s unforced errors mounted by the minute.

This impacted her approach too, evident from the nervousness in the toss-ups to serve, when she stopped short on a couple of occasions.

In the second set, the 17-year-old held serve in the opening game and wrested Prarthana’s in the sixth. There was however little she could do to stop Prarthana’s march to victory.

“I am very happy to win for the third consecutive day. It is not as easy as the scoreline suggests. My opponent is a good player but I had a game plan for her. I focused mainly on keeping the ball in play and waited for her to make the mistakes. Thankfully, this ploy worked,” said a delighted Prarthana.

Prenko, tall and well-built, had the wherewithal to give Raina a run for her money.

The 22-year-old didn’t capitalise on her height especially when serving, Ankita firing in more aces than her.

The southpaw seemed in a hurry, smacking the ball a little early on the rise, several such returns sailing over her opponent’s baseline.

She managed to hold serve only in the fourth game of the first set.

The enterprise Prenko showed in the second was too little and came too late as when she held serve in the fifth, aided by two aces.

By then Raina held the reins and was in no mood to let go.

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