Indian pair of Ankita Raina and Prarthana Thombare registered an impressive win to enter the doubles quarterfinals of the KPB Trust ITF Women’s Open at the KSLTA Stadium here on Tuesday.
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The No. 2 seeded pair defeated the Indo-German pair of Sharmada Balu and Sarah Rebecca Sekulic 5-7, 6-3, 10-6 in a thrilling round-of-16 match that lasted nearly two hours. Meanwhile, the third seeded Indo-Swedish pair of Rutuja Bhosale and Jacqueline Awad also advanced to the last-8 stage after beating Ji Hee Choi (South Korea) and Lee Ya-Hsuan (Taipei) 6-4, 6-2.
On the other hand, the all-India pair of Pragathi Narayan and Prathiba Narayan crashed out in the round of 16 after losing 4-6, 2-6 to Anastasia Kovaleva and Hanna Vinahradava. Similar was the fate of another all-India pair of Vaidehi Chaudhari and Shrivalli Rashmikaa who saw off the pair of Slovenia’s Dalilia Jakupovic, former world No. 38 and France’s Amandine Hesse 6-7(5), 7-5, 5-10. They gave a tough fight to the fancied duo.
Meanwhile, in the opening round of singles, Japanese Ikumi Yamazaki defeated third seed Sakura Hosogi 5-7, 3-6. Bengaluru girl Sharmada, a wild card entrant, however, lost to No. 8 seed Eden Silva of Britain 2-6, 4-6.
Earlier, ITF Women’s Open was inaugurated by Dr Ekroop Caur IAS, Secretary, Department of Finance (Budget), Government of Karnataka in the presence of the chief guest KP Balaraj, Founder of KPB Family Trust along with Sunil Yajaman, Joint Secretary of KSLTA, and Peter Vijay Kumar, the Tournament Director.
