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Rishika Sunkara advances to second round

NEW DELHI: Rishika Sunkara defeated Anastasiya Prenko of Turkmenistan 6-3, 6-3 in the first round of the $10,000 ITF women's tennis tournament at the DLTA Complex here on Monday.

Though it looked like a walk in the park for the Delhi girl, Rishika had to fight her indifferent serves and indecisive strokes, against the talented left-hander who did smack a few rousing winners interspersed with teasing drops but lacked the consistency to make a better fight of it.

After racing away with the first set and being up a break at 3-0 in the second, Rishika dropped her serve in the fifth game, and had to save a breakpoint in a long-drawn seventh game in which deuce was called nine times. It became decisive once Rishika held serve in that seventh game, and Prenko lacked the will to fight any further.

On the show court, Zainab Ali Sajjad gave a good account of herself as she led 3-0 in the first set and 3-1 in the second, but the fifth-seeded Stephanie Scimone of Italy packed too much punch in her game to let the Indian girl trouble her for long.

Shweta Rana also had a dream start as she jumped to a 4-0 lead, but Joanna Nalborska of Poland, who had beaten the top-seeded Keren Shlomo last week, won the next 11 games to finish the match as a contest before the diminutive Indian won another token game.

The results: Singles (first round): Stephanie Scimone (Ita) bt Zainab Ali Sajjad 6-3, 6-3; Joanna Nalborska (Pol) bt Shweta Rana 6-4, 6-1; Rishika Sunkara bt Anastasiya Prenko (Tkm) 6-3, 6-3; Shin Jung Yoon (Kor) bt He Sirui (Chn) 6-1, 6-3.

Doubles (pre-quarterfinals): Keren Shlomo (Isr) & Rushmi Chakravarthi bt Nehel Sahni & Garima Vatwani 6-0, 6-2. Nova Patel & Rishika Sunkara bt Vaniya Dangwal & Smriti Joon 6-2, 6-1; Aishwarya & Ankita Raina bt Shruti Archita & Sahan Shetty 6-2, 6-0; Tegan Edwards (RSA) & Gopika Kapoor bt Tarrannum Handa & Shreya Pasricha 6-0, 6-2; Desiree Bastianon (Bel) & Joanna Nalborska (Pol) bt Ankita Bhatia & Nupur Kaul 6-4, 6-1.

He Sirui & Yang Zhaoxuan (Chn) bt Sowjanya Bavisetti & Rutuja Bhosale 6-1, 3-6, 10-5.

Zainab Ali & Ratnika Batra bt Shweta & Prarthana 6-3, 7-5; Kim Hae Sung & Kim Ju Eun (Kor) bt Shin Jung Yoon (Kor) & Ashvarya Shrivastava 6-2, 6-2.

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