The Hindu : Sport / Tennis : Wei-Ping Lee packs off Sanaa Bhambri

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jun 14, 2006

Sport

Sport - Tennis

Wei-Ping Lee packs off Sanaa Bhambri

Special Correspondent

Rushmi Chakravarthi scrapes past Poojashree Venkatesh

NEW DELHI: Fourth-seeded Sanaa Bhambri could not match Wei-Ping Lee of Singapore and went down in three sets in the first round of the $10,000 ITF women's tennis tournament at the DLTA Complex here on Tuesday.

On another dusty day, it was the grit of the 15-year-old Lee that came to the fore as she recovered from losing the second set in the tie-break to outplay the 18-year-old Indian left-hander in the decider, for a 6-4, 6-7(4), 6-1 triumph in just over two hours.

The diminutive Singaporean reeled off five games in a row in the end to snuff Sanaa's challenge, with the same fluency she had demonstrated in racing away with the first set after trailing 3-4.

Having unsuccessfully tried her hand at the junior event of the French Open in Paris, it was a double blow for Sanaa to lose so early, but she would have enough time to get better for the next event.

Ankita sails through

Sanaa's elder sister, the top-seeded Ankita Bhambri outplayed left-hander Krushmi Chheda losing only one game. Ankita won the first nine games and conceded only seven points on her serve in the whole match and four of them were through double-faults.

Rushmi Chakravarthi was taken to the third set by the National junior champion Poojashree Venkatesh, but the third-seeded Indian Oil officer from Chennai asserted her superiority in the decider.

Megha Vakaria and Isha Lakhani also warmed up for the tougher battles ahead with considerable ease.

The results (Indians unless specified): Singles (first round): Ankita Bhambri bt Krushmi Chheda 6-0, 6-1; Megha Vakaria bt Geeta Manohar 6-4, 6-1; Rushmi Chakravarthi bt Poojashree Venkatesh 6-0, 1-6, 6-2; Po-Kuen Lam (Hkg) bt Vivien Silfany Tony (Ina) 4-6, 6-4, 6-2; Sandy Gumulya (Ina) bt Neha Rana 6-1, 6-0; Ji Chun-Mei (Chn) bt Ren Jing (Chn) 7-6(4), 6-1; Wei-Ping Lee (Sin) bt Sanaa Bhambri 6-4, 6-7(4), 6-1; Isha Lakhani bt Lavinia Tananta (Ina) 6-3, 6-1.

Doubles (pre-quarterfinals): Po-Kuen Lam (Hkg)/Sagarika Phadke w.o. Janaki Gunuganti and Shalini Sahoo; Krushmi Chheda/Parul Goswami bt Asha Nandakumar/Varsha Shivshankar 7-5, 6-2; Ji-Chun-Mei/Ren Jing (Chn) bt Anne-Valerie Evain (Fra)/Neha Rana 6-2, 6-2; Vishika Chhetri/ Sandri Gangothri bt Tara Iyer/Archana Venkataraman 6-1, 4-6, 6-3.

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