The Hindu : Sport / Tennis : Riner beats Clerico

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
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Sport - Tennis

Riner beats Clerico

Nandakumar Marar

MUMBAI: Switzerland's Nicole Riner (828) upset Nicole Clerico (601) of Italy 7-5, 7-5 in the opening round of MSLTA ITF women's circuit Mumbai event on Tuesday.

India's Isha Lakhani, trying to improve her current 617th rank, beat fifth seed Sanaa Bhambri 6-0, 6-3. She is in the lower half of the draw and moved towards a showdown with second seed Ankita Bhambri, who needed more than two hours to overcome Parul Goswami 6-3, 6-3.

Top-seed Rushmi Chakravarthi and fourth seed Marinne Giraud were the other expected victors.

Riner's familiarity with her Italian rival's game helped her to recover from dropping the first service games in both sets.

Both exchanged breaks, the Swiss was held back by five double-faults (reduced to one in the second) but made the extra effort to put the ball back..

The results (Indians unless specified):

Singles: First round: Rushmi Chakravarthi bt Sagarika Phadke 6-3, 6-1; Poojashree Venkatesha bt Vishakha Sheoran 6-1, 6-4; Nicole Riner (Swi) bt Nicole Clerico (Ita) 7-5, 7-5; Sweta Solanki bt Vishika Chhetri 6-4, 6-0; Kelsey Sundaram (U.S.) bt Varsha Shivshankar 7-5, 7-6(2); Isha Lakhani bt Sanaa Bhambri 6-0, 6-3; Geeta Manohar bt Ragini Vimal 6-2, 2-6, 6-3; Marinne Giraud (Mri) bt Martina Caciotti (Ita) 6-0, 6-2; Ankita Bhambri bt Parul Goswami 6-3, 6-3.

Doubles: First round: Rushmi Chakravarthi / Mariana Muchi-Torres (Ven) bt Asha Saravana Mohan / Shivani Seekantiah 6-1, 6-0; Ankita Bhambri / Sanaa Bhambri bt Krushmi Chheda / Shweta Kakhandki 6-1, 6-0; Parul Goswami / Geeta Manohar bt Varsha Shivshankar / Kelsey Sundaram (U.S.) 6-3, 6-4; Sonal Phadke / Archana Venkatraman bt Rasika Sankpal / Garima Vatwani 6-0, 6-1; Vishika Chhetri / Poojashree Venkatesha bt Sai Jayalakshmy Jayram /Megha Vakharia 6-3, 7-6(7); Sagarika Phadke / Vimal Ragini bt Apurvika Shukla / Arthi Venkatraman 6-0, 6-3.

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