The Hindu : Sport : Maiden final for sizzling Sandhya

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, May 13, 2006

Sport

Sport

Maiden final for sizzling Sandhya

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: Sandhya Nagaraj cruised into her maiden final by beating Sonal Phadke 6-2, 6-3 in the semifinals of the Oil India Limited $10,000 ITF women's tennis tournament at the DLTA complex here on Friday.

Though she was not pushed hard by Sonal, who was a step slower than usual, the 17-year-old Sandhya played as well as the situation demanded to tame the sixth seed in style.

Sandhya did drop her serve twice but that was after she had taken a commanding 5-0 lead, and she stroked with punch and mixed the drop shots to telling effect.

Real challenge ahead

The real challenge for Sandhya will be on Saturday when she takes on the fourth-seeded Zhao Yi-Jing of China in the title clash. The Chennai girl had beaten the second-seeded Chinese Song Shan-Shan on the way, but may find the left-hander a tough nut to crack if she does not play her best.

Zhao was ruthless as she blew away the feeble challenge from Asha Nandakumar.

The tall and well-built Asha — who had done very well to make the semifinals from the qualifying event and had accounted for the top-seeded Rushmi Chakravarthi in the second round — looked to have forgotten the basics as she was caught rooted to the ground.

Asha grappled with a misfiring serve and delivered as many as 12 doublefaults. In fact, she lost her grip over the proceedings in the fourth game of the first set when she had five doublefaults.

Meanwhile, the Chinese girls clinched the doubles title by beating the second-seeded pair of Rushmi Chakravarthi and Archana Venkataraman in the final.

The results:

Singles (semifinals): Zhao Yi-Jing (Chn) bt Asha Nandakumar 6-1, 6-2; Sandhya Nagaraj bt Sonal Phadke 6-2, 6-3. Doubles (final): Song Shan-Shan/Zhao Yi-Jing bt Rushmi Chakravarthi/Archana Venkataraman 6-3, 6-4.

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