The Hindu : Sai has the measure of Sheetal again

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Sep 10, 2003

Sport

Sport - Tennis

Sai has the measure of Sheetal again

By Khalyan N. Ashok

Punam Reddy lines up a return during her encounter with the eighth seed, Archana Venkataraman, in the ITF women's Circuit in Bangalore on Tuesday. Punam ousted Archana. — Photo: K. Gopinathan

BANGALORE Sept. 9. Sai Jayalakshmy and Sheetal Goutham, the two seasoned pros on the women's circuit, re-enacted the drama that marked their clash at Delhi and the verdict was once again in favour of Sai, who won 3-6, 6-0, 6-4 and moved into the last 16 round of the Indian Oil Servo ITF women's circuit tennis championship at the KSLTA Stadium here on Tuesday.

The contest, on the centre court lasting 109 minutes, provided an absorbing fare in the decider after a lackslustre first two sets. Certainly, sixth-seeded Sai, nursing a heel injury, was under pressure at the outset, struggling to get into her rhythm as Sheetal broke her easily in the fifth and ninth games to take the set at 6-3.

Sheetal should have maintained the tempo. But suddenly she found herself mistiming her strokes and a rash of unforced errors crept in, while Sai found her touch with her deadly forehand. She belted winners at will to rock Sheetal and raced through the second set without conceding a game.

Sai broke Sheetal in the first game of the decider, but Sheetal came up with an inspired play, to crack her rival back in the fourth game and levelled at two all. The two rallied well from the back of the court with Sai, trying out quite a few variations and her overheads worked like clockwork as she succeeded in breaking Sheetal to take a vital 4-3 lead which she stretched to 5-3 on her serve.

Then serving for the match at 5-4, Sai was given a scare by Sheetal as she battled to deuce but squandered a break point and Sai had the last laugh, blasting a forehand cross court winner to wrap up the set and the match.

Rushmi outslugs Parul

On the adjoining court No. 2, Sai's doubles partner and the third seed Rushmi Chakravarthi had a fight on her hands as Bengal teenager, Parul Goswami, stretched Rushmi with her aggressive game.

Rushmi was in her element in the first set, racing to a 4-0 lead and won the set at 6-1.

But Parul came back overpowering her rival in the second set and took a 4-2 lead. Rushmi was suddenly on the back burner, struggling to pick her game against a rival, who took the second set 6-3.

The decider, however, saw Rushmi play lot more sensibly as she picked her points with judicious strokes and cut down the pace and kept pounding her deep groundstrokes to pin her young rival down.

Rushmi took a 3-0 lead and though Parul, cut the deficit to 2-3, the young lass was short on ideas to salvage the set and match, which slowly slipped away from her.

Sonal quells Sandhya's challenge

The smooth stroking seventh seed, Sonal Phadke, quelled a spirited challenge from Sandhya Nagaraj. After Sonal romped through the first 6-0, Sandhya, who hit some solid forehand winners, matched her rival in the second set. Both held their serves and Sandhya took a 3-1 lead in the tie-breaker, but Sonal cut her progress short as she attacked her rival's backhand and won 7-4.

The National champion, Isha Lakhani, though initially was under pressure, rallied quickly to post a 6-4, 6-4 win over Geeta Manohar. The top two seeds, Suchanan Viratprasert of Thailand and Chin-Bee Khoo of Malaysia, proved too good for their rivals.

Suchanan dumped Madhura Ranganathan 6-0, 6-0, while Chin-Bee blasted past qualifier, Chirashanthi Rajur 6-0, 6-1.

The fourth seed, Megha Vakharia, a semifinalist at Delhi, cruised to a 6-4, 6-1 win over qualifier Sandra Sasidharan. The lone casualty of the second day was the eighth seed, Archana Venkatraman, who fell to a determined 16-year-old qualifier, Punam Reddy, in a hard fought three- setter 1-6, 7-5, 6-7 (3-7).

The encounter, which lasted 150 minutes, didn't exactly set the stands on fire, but it had its riveting moments as the two girls slugged intensely from the baseline and both had a fair share of unforced errors. Punam 's strength was her clean hit strokes, while Archana did her best to outlast the spunky Andhra girl. Archana failed to strike the right rhythm in the first set, as she was outplayed by her younger rival. In the second set, however, she rallied after being 0-2 down to win the set 7-5. By the time the match reached the decider, both players seemed totally exhausted and it required sheer will power to carry on. With a last gasp effort, Archana broke Punam in the 11th for a 6-5 lead and Punam didn't cave in easily as she hit back in the next game to level the set at 6-all and set the stage for a tie-breaker, which she won convincingly at 7-3.

Close on the heels of her defeat, Archana's elder sister, Arthi, also made her exit losing 5-7, 2-6 to Kamini Murugaboopathy.

The results (Indians unless specified. Prefix indicate seedings):

Singles (first round): 3-Rushmi Chakravarthi bt Parul Goswami 6-1, 3-6, 6-3; 6-Sai Jayalakshmy bt Sheetal Goutham 3-6, 6-0, 6-4; 2-Chin-Bee Khoo (Mal) bt Chirshanthi Rajur 6-0, 6-1; Punam Reddy bt 8-Archana Venkatraman 6-1, 5-7, 7-6 (7-3); 7-Sonal Phadke bt Sandhya Nagaraj 6-0, 7-6 (7-4); 5-Isha Lakhani bt Geeta Manohar 6-4, 6-4; Kamini Murugaboopathy bt Arthi Venkatraman 7-5, 6-2; 1-Suchanan Viratprasert (Tha) bt Madhura Ranganathan 6-0, 6-0; 4-Megha Vakharia bt Sandra Sasidharan 6-4, 6-1.

Doubles: P.O. Kuen Lam (HK )/Sheetal Goutham bt Sandri Gangotri/Preethi Subramaniam 6-1, 6-1; Krushmi Chhedha/Punam Reddy bt Nandini Perumal/Yamini Thukkaindi 6-7 (5-7), 6-4, 6-3; 3-Sonal Phadke/Shruti Dhawan bt Iciri Rai/Preeti Rao 7-5, 6-3; 2-Chin Bee Khoo (Mal)/Megha Vakharia bt Archana Venkatraman/Arthi Venkatraman 6-1, 6-2; 4-Suchanan Viratprasert (Tha)/Geeta Manohar bt Natalia Neri (GB)/Samrita Sekar 6-2, 6-3.

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