Ankita Raina will be the top seed and play her first round against Bojana Marinkovic of Serbia in the $25,000 ITF women’s tennis tournament at the Sardar Club in Ratanada from Tuesday.
While Ankita has been able to continue from where she left last year, by winning a double crown in a similar event already this season, the focus could be on the return of Karman Kaur Thandi.
In fact, there will be many Indian players in the event, some of whom have been able to assert their improvement in the qualifying event.
It will be a good chance for the Indian FedCup players to compete together in a tournament, before the competition in Dubai, as Rutuja Bhosale, Riya Bhatia and Sowjanya Bavisetti would also be playing in the tournament apart from Ankita and Karman.
Nidhi Chiliumula, Mihika Yadav, Jennifer Luikham, Vaidehi Chaudhari, Sri Vaishnavi Peddi Reddy, Zeel Desai, Humera Shaik, Sathwika Sama, Saumya Vig and Soha Sadiq will be the other Indian players in action, trying to move forward in the main event.
It is another rare opportunity for the Indian women to compete at home, and they would be keen to capitalise on the advantage.
The results: Qualifying singles (second and final round): Soha Sadiq bt Supapitch Kuearum (Tha) 6-2, 1-6, [10-5]; Nidhi Chilumula bt Sonashe Bhatnagar 6-0, 6-4; Ekaterina Nikiforova (Rus) bt Nidtra Rajmohan 6-2, 6-1; Vaidehi Chaudhari bt Ashmitha Easwaramurthi 4-6, 6-3, [10-4]; Sri Vaishnavi Peddi Reddy bt Prerna Bhambri 6-4, 1-6, [10-8]; Saumya Vig bt Muskan Mahajan (US) 6-4, 6-1; Humera Shaik bt Rashi Malviya 6-1, 6-2; Shria Atturu (US) bt Arthi Muniyan 3-6, 7-6(2), [10-4].
First round: Soha bt Kriti Tomar 6-0, 6-1; Sonashe bt Prathusha Rachapudi 6-4, 6-1; Nikiforova bt Vanshita Pathania 6-4, 6-4; Niditra bt Lakshanya Choudhary 7-5, 6-0; Ashmitha bt Vaidehi Narsinghani 6-0, 6-0; Vaidehi Chaudhari bt Aayushi Tanwar 6-1, 7-5; Sri Vaishnavi bt Renee Singh 6-0, 6-0; Prerna bt Prathiba Prasad 6-2, 6-4; Saumya bt Shilpi Das 6-0, 6-2; Muskan bt Pooja Ingale 4-6, 6-0, [10-8]; Humera bt Dakshata Patel 6-0, 6-1; Rashi bt Snehal Mane 7-6(4), 6-2; Arthi bt Minami Akiyama (Jpn) 6-4, 6-3; Shria bt Jigyasa Narsinghani 7-5, 6-2.
.png?w=600)
