Karman, Rutuja exit to end India’s challenge

Pune, Dec 14 (PTI) India’s Karman Kaur Thandi and Rutuja Bhosale made their exit to signal the end of the home country challenge in singles in the USD 25,000 NECC ITF women’s tennis championship here today. In the quarter final action, seventh seed Karman met her match in second seed Georgina Garcia-Perez of Spain and lost 4-6, 3-6 while wild card Rutuja’s fine run ended with a straight-set (4-6, 4-6) loss to Olga Doroshina of Russia. There was a huge upset with top-seed Jia-Jing Lu also making her exit, beaten by Fatma Al Nabhani, ranked 349 places below the Chinese, at the Deccan Gymkhana courts. The 26-year-old Omani won 6-4, 7-6 (6) in a duel that lasted an hour and 41 minutes. Karman was the first among the two Indians in action today. With a break in game two, the Indian teenager opened up 3-0 and 4-1 leads to raise visions of victory over Spaniard Garcia-Perez. But Karman’s play dipped thereafter that the Spaniard took advantage of to force breaks in the seventh and ninth games and win the set. In the second set, the rivals traded breaks initially before Kamran slipped badly to trail 1-5. She held her serve and also broke her rival’s serve in the eighth game to make it 3-5 before the Russian held her serve to clinch the set and the match. Rutuja followed suit and succumbed to her second successive loss to Russian Olga. In the week before at Solapur, Rutuja met a similar fate losing in the quarter finals. Rutuja started confidently to hold her serve at love before Olga stepped on the gas and made it a one horse race to open up a 1-5 lead. Rutuja fought back to win three games in a row (4-5) but eventually conceded the set. The second set went in similar fashion with the fight even till five games before Olga pulled away to lead 2-4. Rutuja won a marathon seventh game to hold serve as well as the 9th but that was all she could manage and bowed out. The last semifinal slot was taken by No. 4 Katy Dunne (GBR) who put out fifth seed Ganna Poznikhirenko (Ukraine) 7-6 (4), 7-5 in the longest match of the day that ended after 2 hours and nine minutes. In the doubles semifinals, unseeded pair Jessy Rompies (Indonesia)/Varunya Wongteanchai (Thailand) continued their giant-killing act by stunning No. 1 seeds Georgina Garcia Perez (Spain)/ Valeriya Strakhova (Ukraine) 4-6, 6-4, 10-8. Third seeds Samantha Murray (Great Britian)/Ana Veselinovic (Montenegro) quashed the hopes of the No.2 seeds Ankita Raina (India)/Emily Webley-Smith (Britain) 4-6, 7-5, 10-4. Results: Singles (Quarter finals): Fatma Al Nabhani (Oma) b 1-Jia-Jing Lu (Chn) 6-4, 7-6 (6); 2-Georgina Garcia-Perez (Esp) b 7-Karman Kaur Thandi (Ind) 6-4, 6-3; Olga Doroshina (Rus) b WC-Rutuja Bhosale (Ind) 6-4, 6-4; 4-Katy Dunne (Gbr) b 5-Ganna Poznikhirenko (Ukr) 7-6 (4), 7-5. Doubles (Semi finals): Jessy Rompies (Ina)/Varunya Wongteanchai (Tha) bt 1-Georgina Garcia Perez (Esp)/Valeriya Strakhova (Ukr) 4-6, 6-4, 10-8; 3-Samantha Murray (GBR)/ Ana Veselinovic (MNE) b 2-Ankita Raina (Ind)/Emily Webley-Smith (GBR) 4-6, 7-5, 10-4. PTI SSR NP