The Hindu : Sport / Tennis : Dai stuns Sonal

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Tuesday, May 06, 2008
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Dai stuns Sonal

Special Correspondent

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Eighth-seeded Sonal Phadke (India) became the first major casualty of the BSNL Kerala Open ITF women’s tournament as she was knocked out 4-6, 6-4, 6-2 by Trang Huynh Phuong Dai (Vietnam) at the TTC courts here on Monday.

Otherwise, the other five first-round matches of the day saw results on expected lines as sixth-seeded Miki Miyamura (Japan) and seventh-ranked Min-Hwa Yu (South Korea) cruised through to the second round hardly breaking any sweat.

Focussed game

That Phadke had a tough job on hand was very much evident right from the start of her match against Dai, who seemed quite focussed with her game and hardly gave anything away.

Still, the Indian did remain in the picture as she pocketed the first set as she came up with the lone break, in the tenth game.

But thereafter, the story was quite different as Dai made most of the unforced errors committed by her rival in the fifth game of the second set and jumped ahead to gain a 3-2 lead. The Vietnamese player held on to that right through the remaining fives games before drawing level with Phadke, who in the third set, was simply whipped to surrender the first and seventh games.

The results (first round):

Singles (Indians unless specifically mentioned): Sweta Kumari Solanki bt Nicola Mooney (Gbr) 7-5, 6-1; Trang Huynh Phuong Dai (Vie) bt Sonal Phadke 4-6, 6-4, 6-2; Min-Hwa Yu (Kor) bt Shahin Ansari 6-1, 6-0; Parul Goswami bt Julia Matojan (Est) 6-3, 6-3; Ashmitha Easwaramurthi bt Parvathy Vijayan 6-0, 6-0; Miki Miyamura (Jpn) bt Subbadharmi Sundaram (U.S.) 6-0, 6-1.

Doubles: Sanaa Bhambri / Sweta Kumari Solanki bt Parija Maloo / Shalini Sahoo 6-3, 6-2; Harshini Reddy / Subbadharmi Sundaram (U.S.) bt Ranji Smita Jain / Preethi Srinivasan 6-2, 6-3; Shahin Ansari / Dipti Srivastava bt Alexandra Riley (U.S.) / Deepna Vazirani 6-3, 5-7, 10-6.

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