Rishika and Shweta progress

July 21, 2014 11:01 pm | Updated 11:01 pm IST - NEW DELHI:

Rishika Sunkara and Shweta Rana progressed smoothly in both singles and doubles on the opening day of the Amul $10,000 ITF women’s tennis tournament at the DLTA Complex here on Monday.

Quite accustomed to the conditions at home, the second-seeded Rishika and the third-seeded Shweta capitalised on the penchant of their singles opponents, Sharon Sanchana Paul and Damini Sharma to go for the big shots, with their smart counter play.

In doubles, the top-seeded Rishika and Shweta proved too good for a scratch Indo-Malaysian combination.

However, Rishika and Shweta may be tested thoroughly on Tuesday when they take on Rushmi Chakravarthi and Natasha Palha in the quarterfinals.

Olympian Rushmi and the top-seeded singles player Natasha, combined nicely to scotch the youthful exuberance of the left-handed Saumya Vig and Vineeta Singh, who played with a lot of courage but without conviction on the key points.

Local girl Vineeta was unable to tackle the calculated play of Arthi Muniyan in the third and final qualifying round in singles, earlier in the day.

Arthi was rewarded for her effective game, with a first round against fellow qualifier Akshara Iska.

Former Asian junior champion Snehadevi Reddy, keen to get as many matches as possible on her return to the professional circuit after losing a few months to a palm injury, perspired her way past the fleet-footed Yukina Saigo of Japan.

She will play another qualifier, the stocky Adnya Naik, in the main draw.

The results:

Singles (first round): Vaniya Dangwal bt Arantxa Andrady 6-4, 6-3; Shweta Rana bt Damini Sharma 6-2, 6-1; Rishika Sunkara bt Sharon Sanchana Paul 6-3, 6-1.

Doubles (pre-quarterfinals): Shweta Rana and Rishika Sunkara bt Theiviya Selvarajoo (Mas) and Preethi Ujjini 6-2, 6-1; Rushmi Chakravarthi and Natasha Palha bt Vineeta Singh and Saumya Vig 6-3, 6-0.

Kim Dabin (Kor) and Rutuja Bhosale bt Snehadevi Reddy and Dhruthi Venugopal 2-6, 6-2, 10-6; Abbie Myers (Aus) and Yukina Saigo (Jpn) bt Sri Vaishnavi Peddi Reddy and Simran Kaur Sethi 6-1, 6-7(3), 10-4; Jennifer Luikham and Shreya Pasricha bt amrita Mukherjee and Vansihka Sawhney 7-5, 6-2.

Sai Samhitha and Eetee Maheta bt Mahitha Dadi Reddy and Bhuvana Kalva 6-4, 7-6(2); Arantxa Andrady and Sharon Sanchana Paul bt Vaniya Dangwal and Teertha Iska 6-1, 6-2; Han Sung-Hee and Nidhi Chilumula bt Adnya Naik and Likitha Shetty 6-3, 7-5.

Qualifying event (third and final round): Jennifer Luikham bt Victoria Chehal 6-3, 0-1 (retired); Karman Kaur Thandi bt Srishti Slaria 6-1, 6-4; Nithya Raj Babu Raj bt Moulika Ram 6-7(1), 6-3, 6-0; Akshara Iska bt Disha Satish Agarwal 6-1, 6-4; Arthi Muniyan bt Vineeta Singh 7-5, 6-4; Snehadevi Reddy bt Yukina Saigo (Jpn) 6-4, 6-4; Adnya Naik bt Masako Makiba (Jpn) 6-1, 6-3; Sai Samhitha bt Rishika Ravindran 6-2, 6-1.

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