Indian juniors Pranjala Yadlapalli and Karman Kaur Thandi continue their brilliant run at the 2016 Australian Open as they booked their places in the third round of the girls’ singles event on Monday. While the 10th seeded Yadlapalli beat Austrian Mira Antonitsch 7-6, 6-3, the unseeded Thandi emerged a 6-4, 6-2 winner over Panna Udvardy of Hungary.
Later, the two girls combined to win their first round in girls’ doubles too. The fifth-seeded Yadlapalli/Thandi beat the Australian duo of Petra Hule and Selina Turulja 6-4, 6-3.
Pranjala Yadlapalli and Mira Antonitsch were neck-to-neck in the first set that saw them trading breaks twice. But once she grabbed the tight opening set in a tie-break, the tide turned in her favour as the Austrian started making lots of unforced errors. The Indian junior World No. 18 needed just one break point opportunity and she capitalized on it to win in 1 hour 33 minutes.
Yadlapalli next crosses swords with the eighth seed and junior Wimbledon quarter-finalist Anastasia Potapova of Russia.
Karman Kaur Thandi produced 14 winners and made in-roads into her Hungarian opponent’s serve six times to seal her place in the third round in 1 hour 14 minutes. She has a tough task up next as she faces the Australian No. 1 Bernard Tomic’s younger sister, Sara Tomic. The soon-to-be-18-year-old Sara is playing her last junior Grand Slam and is ranked 252 places above the 704th ranked Indian.
In girls’ doubles, Yadlapalli and Thandi thundered down 21 winners past their Australian opponents and broke them a total of four times. They now face the unseeded Chinese team of Sigi Cao and Jia Ren for a place in the quarter-finals.
Earlier on Sunday, the third Indian junior – Mihika Yadav – bowed out of both girls’ singles and girls’ doubles. In singles, she lost 0-6, 2-6 to the 15th seeded Katherine Sebov of Canada. In doubles, Yadav and her Chinese partner Zhuoma Ni Ma succumbed to a 3-6, 0-6 defeat to the second seeds Anna Kalinskaya and Tereza Mihalikova.
