The Hindu : Sport / Tennis : Ankita in final

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jun 17, 2006

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Sport - Tennis

Ankita in final

NEW DELHI: Ankita Bhambri served her best at the crunch to beat Rushmi Chakravarthi 6-4, 3-6, 6-4 in the semifinals of the $10,000 ITF women's tennis tournament at the DLTA Complex here on Friday.

In a contest filled with breaks of serve, 14 in all, it was important to hold and the 19-year-old top seed did that with aplomb in her last three service games. In fact, Ankita served out the match at love, firing one of her three aces in the process.

Nervous start

Having lost to Rushmi five times in seven meetings in the ITF circuit, Ankita was a bit edgy initially. Doublefaults didn't help her cause in the second set — she had six of them — but the local girl had things in control in the first and third sets where she committed just one doublefault in each.

Rushmi led 2-0 in the decider but Ankita swung the match around to clinch the issue. Both players indulged in spells of electrifying play that kept the sparse gathering thoroughly entertained.

In the final, Ankita will take on the second-seeded Isha Lakhani who defeated Ji Chun-Mei of China for the loss of six games. The 21-year-old Isha did drop her serve thrice but was in command overall.

The doubles final has been rescheduled to Saturday due to rain.

The results (semifinals):

Singles: Ankita Bhambri bt Rushmi Chakravarthi 6-4, 3-6, 6-4; Isha Lakhani bt JI Chun-Mei (Chn) 6-3, 6-3.

Doubles: Pichittra Thongdach (Tha)/Isha Lakhani bt Sandy Gumulya/Lavinia Taananta (Ina) 5-7, 6-4, 6-4. — Special Correspondent

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