Shweta Rana lit up the proceedings, literally in fading light, as she knocked out second seed Rishika Sunkara in the women’s first round of the Fenesta National tennis championship here on Monday.
With the juniors hogging most of the daylight, the men’s and women’s matches were played in the evening. The fleet-footed Shweta ran hard and hit with conviction in gaining a hold over the match after the wiry Rishika failed to serve out the first set in the tenth game.
Once she won the first set, Shweta enhanced the intensity of her game and ran away with the match, despite dropping the first game of the second set.
It was a morale-boosting victory for the small-built but athletic Shweta as she had lost to Rishika twice in the last two years in the professional circuit, apart from the national championship last year.
Pranjala upsets DhruthiThere was one more upset in store as the reigning Asian junior champion, Y. Pranjala, stroked with authority in beating the third seed Dhruthi Venugopal in straight sets.
Dhruthi did try to hit her way out of trouble but lacked the energy to make a fight of it against an opponent who played a fluent game.
In the men’s section, the top-seeded junior Aryan Goveas, who had endured the qualifying event to make the main draw, teased eighth seed Siddharth Vishwakarma before the latter pulled through in the third set tie-break. Former National champion Mohit Mayur was tested by Jayesh Pungliya but pulled through in two tight sets.
Top seed Sriram Balaji was in good touch as he blasted his way past Rubal Shandilya for the loss of three games.
Qualifier Garvit Batra also put up an energetic fare in cruising past PC Vignesh.
In the junior girls section, Humeira Sheikh battled for three hours to subdue Harshita Chugh 5-7, 7-6(6), 7-5 after mssin four set-points at 6-2 in the second set tie-break.
Akshara Iska overcame a bout of vomiting to overtake Tanisha Kashyap in three sets.
The results (first round):
Men: Sriram Balaji bt Rubal Shandilya 6-1, 6-2; Gokul Suresh bt Sandeep Choudhary 2-6, 7-6(2), 7-5; Garvit Batra bt PC Vignesh 6-3, 6-4; Siddharth Vishwakarma bt Aryan Goveas 6-3, 3-6, 7-6(2); Mohit Mayur bt Jayesh Pungliya 7-5, 7-6(6); Rashein Samuel bt Vignesh Veerabhadran 6-4, 6-1; Sai Saran Reddy bt Digvijay Singh Mehta 3-6, 6-3, 6-3; Sidharth Rawat bt Paramveer Singh Bajwa 6-3, 6-0.
Women: Riya Bhatia Arantxa Andrady 6-1, 6-0; Y. Pranjala bt Dhruthi Venugopal 6-2, 6-4; Sai Samhitha bt Nida Kamal 6-1, 6-1; Shivika Burman bt Himani Mor 6-1, 6-2; Aarthi Muniyan bt Dakshata Girishkumar 4-6, 6-3, 6-1; Shweta Rana bt Rishika Sunkara 7-5, 6-1.
Under-18 boys: Aryan Goveas bt Jaydeep Chudasma 6-0, 6-0; Sivadeep Kosaraju bt Raghav Jaisinghani 7-6(4), 6-4; Raswant Ravi bt Saurav Kalkal 6-4, 6-3; Adil Kalyanpur bt Drona Walia 6-0, 2-6, 7-6(3); Shrey Gupta bt Taha Kapadia 1-6, 6-3, 6-3; Siddhant Banthia bt Mritunjay Badola 2-6, 6-4, 6-1; Mingki Talom bt Nihit Rawal 6-1, 2-6, 6-3; Manish Sureshkumar bt Gokul Suresh 6-4, 6-1; Ishaque Eqbal bt Parth Aggarwal 6-4, 7-6(2); Abhimanyu Vannam Reddy bt Sahaj Somani 6-2, 6-3; S.M. Aadithya bt Vikrant Dahiya 6-3, 6-4; Shramay Dhawan bt Sagar Sehrawat 6-2, 7-5; Anurag Nenwani bt Mayank Yadav 6-2, 6-2; Sanil Jagtiani bt Fayyaz Hussain Quadri 6-2, 6-2.
Ashutosh Tiwari bt Himanshu Mor 6-4, 6-4; Nitin Kumar Sinha bt Parth Sharma 6-0, 6-0; Alex Solanki bt Amaranth Arora 6-1, 6-3; Sansidh Kommaraju bt Vaibhav Kundu 6-4, 6-1.
Mayukh Rawat bt Sanket Tomar 4-6, 6-1, 6-0; Param Pun bt Varun Venkat 6-1, 7-5; Yugal Bansal bt rohit Krishna Aynampudi 6-1, 6-2.
Danish Ahmad bt Amit Beniwal 6-1, 6-4; Siddharth Ponnala bt Mohit Bhardwaj 6-4, 6-4; Parikshit Somani bt Chinmaya Dev Chauhan 6-2, 6-3; Dhruv Sunish bt Manav Pondkule 7-5, 6-2; Aditya Vasisht bt Suresh Dakshineshwar 6-4, 6-1; Abhinav Sanjeev bt Anshuman Gulia 6-1, 6-4; Paramveer Singh Bajwa bt Sagar Bains 7-6(4), 6-2; Udayan Bhakar bt Kushaan Nath 2-6, 6-2, 6-3; Paras Dahiya bt R. Ramakrishnan 6-4, 6-4; Armaan Bhatia bt Mridul Kharkwal 7-5, 6-4; B.R. Nikshep bt Sumit Pal Singh 6-2, 6-1.
Under-18 girls: Nairuti Vyas bt Megha Muthukumaran 6-4, 6-0; Shivani Amineni bt Advaita Saravanan 6-3, 6-0; Aarja Chakraborty bt Urmi Pandya 6-4, 6-2; Shefali Arora bt Avishka Gupta 7-5, 3-6, 6-2.
Sai Avanthika bt Radhika Yadav 6-2, 6-3; Aesha Patel bt Anu VErma 6-3, 6-1; Yubrani Banerjee bt Rishika Ravindran 6-4, 4-0 retd.; Smriti Singh bt S. Soha 6-0, 6-1; Akshara Iska bt Tanisha Kashyap 6-2, 1-6, 6-3.
Humeira Sheikh bt Harshita Chugh 5-7, 7-6(6), 7-5; Rashmika Rajan bt Ankita Hoon 7-5, 6-4; Prinkle Singh bt Sanya Singh 6-3, 6-3; Asya Patnaik bt Rutvi Shah 6-1, 6-2; Shreya Gulia bt Isha Budwal 2-6, 6-1, 6-3; Bhakti Parwani bt Manu Sharma 6-0, 6-3.
