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The only Indian in women’s singles qualifying at the French Open 2018 -- Ankita Raina -- bowed out in the first round as the women’s qualifiers got under way at Paris on Tuesday. The 25-year-old, who was making her Grand Slam debut, squandered a second set lead to surrender 3-6, 6-7(2) to the 10th seed and World No. 116 Evgeniya Rodina of Russia in 1 hour 41 minutes.
This was the second meeting between the two. In their only other clash at the $25, 000 ITF tournament in Chiasso in 2016, the Russian had outplayed the Indian 6-2, 6-0.
Raina was better prepared to tackle the 29-year-old Russian on the terre battue of the French capital. However, she took time to settle into the match.
In the first set, the India No. 1 women’s singles player had two break points, which she failed to convert. Rodina, on the other hand, made use of two out of the seven break point chances that she got and grabbed the set 6-3.
Ankita pushed aside that setback and gave a much better account of herself in Set No. 2. Wresting away the momentum from her higher ranked opponent, she built a big lead of 5-2, riding on three breaks of serve.
Just when she was required to be calm and set up a decider, Rodina’s experience prevented her from doing that. The Russian penetrated into the Indian’s serve thrice to take the set to a tie-break, which she then dominated to complete the win.
Despite the loss, Raina will surely look to build on the positives from her first outing at any Major. She is now at a career-high ranking of 181st after a terrific six months of play, that saw her win the ITF $25,000 title in Gwalior.
Since reaching the quarter-finals of the Mumbai 125K Series in November, Raina gained a lot of confidence and made it to the last-eight stage on the ITF circuit at least four times, besides the Gwalior triumph. She also remained unbeaten in singles against higher ranked players in the Asia/Oceania Group I ties at the Fed Cup.
Indian hopes will now rest on Prajnesh Gunneswaran, who plays his second round of qualifying on Wednesday. The India No. 1 men’s singles player, Yuki Bhambri has earned a direct entry into the main draw of the French Open.
Earlier on Monday, Ramkumar Ramanathan and Sumit Nagal went down in the first round of qualifying.
