The Hindu : Sport : Tara Iyer prevails over Ankita Bhambri

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Sunday, Aug 26, 2007
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Sport

Tara Iyer prevails over Ankita Bhambri

Special Correspondent

— Photo: Rajeev Bhatt

WINNING SMILE: Tara Iyer proved to be a tough nut to crack in the final.

NOIDA: Tara Iyer scored a brilliantly 3-6, 6-4, 6-3 win over Ankita Bhambri in the final of the Unitech ITF women’s tennis tournament at the Noida Sports Stadium, here on Saturday.

In a high quality contest, that was a matter of great pride and satisfaction for coach Aditya Sachdeva who trains both the girls, it was Tara’s better physical fitness as much as her mental toughness that swung the fortunes in her favour at the crunch.

Played under the floodlights in the evening under dark clouds, both the girls matched each other stroke for stroke in an energy-sapping exercise that spanned two hours and 31 minutes.

In fact, it was Ankita who hit more winners than Tara, 36 to 26, and served better as well, spanking eight aces to one. Actually, in a desperate measure Ankita hit 16 winners in the third set alone, but, it was the 19-year-old Tara’s consistency that carried the day for her.

In a dramatic decider, Tara bounced back from an early break to lead 4-1 but let her grip slip a bit in the seventh game when she got broken on the fifth breakpoint. However, she pushed a tired Ankita to her wits end so much so that the latter served two doublefaults in dropping serve rather tamely in the next game.

That proved decisive and Tara served out the match without any fuss, as Ankita sprayed her backhand. Overall, it was a splendid fight back by the third seeded Tara, who was down a break at 3-4 in the second set after having lost the first. She hit a few glorious winners to break Ankita in the eighth and tenth games of the second set to put the match on even keel.

Ankita had played very well in the first set to break Tara in the fourth and eighth games, though she herself got broken in the fifth.

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