The Hindu : Sport : India blanks Kazakhstan, keeps slate clean

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Apr 22, 2005

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India blanks Kazakhstan, keeps slate clean

Kamesh Srinivasan

— Photo: Rajeev Bhatt

CAKEWALK: Rushmi Chakravarthi broke no sweat in defeating Ekaterina Morozova.

NEW DELHI: Shikha Uberoi continued to win her singles and doubles matches but the aura about her looked to have diminished a bit despite India keeping a clean slate in subduing Kazakhstan 3-0 in the Fed Cup Asia-Oceania group `I' tennis competition at the R. K. Khanna Stadium here on Thursday.

Captain Enrico Piperno did the right thing in giving the singles spot to Rushmi Chakravarthi, who had reached the singles and doubles final of a $25,000 Challenger last week in Mumbai, and the Indian Oil officer responded by blasting her way past Ekaterina Morozova for the loss of one game in 36 minutes.

However, the captain seemed to have played his card wrong in the doubles as he paired Ankita Bhambri with Shikha. The Indian pair made a heavy weather of beating the cheerful youngsters across the net, as Shikha's serve was broken thrice on way to the Indian team's 6-4, 6-4 triumph.

Ankita has been grappling with a foot injury and has been quite rusty. She continued to struggle with her game though she had to cover less than half the court. Except for the odd winner that was spanked with punch, Ankita was unable to live up to her reputation of having won three of her four singles matches in the last edition.

It was clear that Shikha tried to bite more than she could chew as she tended to cover the extra yard, and the team had to go through many anxious moments before the Uzbeks doublefaulted with alarming consistency in the climax to bow out meekly.

Dropped serve

The US-based Shikha had dropped serve once in the second set of her singles match but she recovered from being 2-4 down to record a straight forward finish against Mariya Kovaleva. She dropped serve once in the first set of the doubles and twice in the second set. The Indian pair saved a breakpoint on Ankita's serve in the ninth game of the second set and Mariya Kovaleva served two successive doublefaults to the relief of the Indian pair.

The good point was that India has avoided relegation as it gets ready to meet the best team in the field, China. In group `II', Uzbekistan was in relentless form and dropped one game in three matches against Turkmenistan to get back to its rightful place in group `I' along with Philippines which was equally authoritative in dismissing Syria.

The results:

Group-I (Pool-A): India beat Kazakhstan 3-0 (Rushmi Chakravarthi bt Ekaterina Morozova 6-0, 6-1; Shikha Uberoi bt Mariya Kovaleva 6-0, 6-4; Shikha Uberoi and Ankita Bhambri bt Mariya Kovaleva and Ekaterina Morozova 6-4, 6-4).

China beat Singapore 3-0 (Jie Zheng bt Wei Ping Lee 6-1, 6-1; Na Li bt Shao Fang Ong 6-0, 6-0; Ting Li and Tian Tian Sun bt Yun-Ling Cassandra Ng and Wei Ping Lee 6-0, 6-1).

Pool-B: Australia beat Chinese Taipei 3-0 (Sophie Ferguson bt Hsiao-Han Chao 6-1, 6-2; Samantha Stosur bt Yi Chen 6-0, 6-2; Samantha Stosur and Bryanne Stewart bt Yen-Hua Lu and Ting-Wen Wang 6-1, 6-3).

Korea beat New Zealand 2-1 (Ye-Ra Lee bt Leanne Baker 6-4, 3-6, 6-4; Jin-Hee Kim lost to Marina Erakovic 1-6, 4-6; Kyung-Mi Chang and Jin-Hee Kim bt Eden Marama and Paula Marama 2-6, 6-3, 7-5).

Group-II: Uzbekistan beat Turkmenistan 3-0 (Dilyara Saidkhodjaeva bt Ummarahmat Alisultanova 6-0, 6-0; Akgul Amanmuradova bt Almira Halliyeva 6-0, 6-1; Akgul Amanmuradova andDilyara Saidkhodjaeva bt Almira Halliyeva and Ummarahmat Alisultanova 6-0, 6-0).

Philippines beat Syria 3-0 (Denise Dy bt Hazar Sidki 6-0, 6-0; Anja-Vanessa Peter bt Shaza Tinawi 6-0, 6-3; Czarina-Mae Arevalo and Denise Dy bt Hazar Sidki and Nivin Kezbari Czarina-Mae Arevalo and Denise Dy bt Hazar Sidki and Nivin Kezbari 6-1, 6-1).

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