Unseeded Thai girl Varunya Wongteanchai shut the door on India’s Prerna Bhambri, the winner of the Gulbarga Open last weekend, in the very first round of the Ashok Kheny ITF Bidar Open $ 10000 Women’s Futures Open, on a rain hit day here.
With the rains coming in fits and starts, the Police Training School courts here was fit to play only late in the afternoon and when it finally began, Varunya wasted little time in disposing off the Indian’s challenge at 7-5, 6-3.
Prerna committed far too many unforced mistakes and failed to capitalise on her chances, while Varunya played solid ground strokes to catch the Indian napping to draw abreast at 4-all after being 1-4 down before winning the first set at 7-5 with a break again in the 11th game.
In the second, Varunya broke Prerna in the third and fifth games to go 5-1 up and despite dropping a service game closed the match at 6-3.
The results:
Singles: First round (Indians unless mentioned otherwise): Venise Chan Wing-Yau (HKG) bt Napatsakorn Sankaew (Tha) 6-1, 6-0; Varunya Wongteanchai (Tha) bt Prerna Bhambri 7-5, 6-3; Chia Hsien Yang (Tpe) bt Agathe Timsit (Fra) 6-4, 6-4; Zi Yang (Chn) bt Risa Hasegawa (Jpn) 6-2, 6-3; Yumi Miyazaki (Jpn) bt Natasha Palha 6-0, 6-3. — Special Correspondent
