Lucknow ITF Futures: India’s Ankita Raina sets up final date with Mutaguchi of Japan

India’s Ankita Raina lived up to her billing, marching into the singles finals of the $10,000 Lucknow Women’s Futures tennis tournament being played at the Oudh Gymkhana Club Tennis Complex in Lucknow.

The top-seed, who is enjoying a good run having clinched the Chennai Futures last week, registered a facile 6-4, 6-1 victory over fourth seed Shweta Rana in the semifinals.

The 524th ranked Indian started on a confident note, serving solidly and essaying nice groundstrokes as well as clinical net play to wrest the initiative in the opening set.

The Gujarat girl, who is now based in Pune, asserted her supremacy in no uncertain terms, breaking Shweta’s serve when it mattered to pocket the first set 6-4.

The winds went out the sails of Shweta’s game in the second set. The fourth seed struggled to keep her game together.

Her serve let her down while unforced errors kept flowing from her racquet.

Shweta’s inconsistent play made things easy for Ankita, who broke her serve more than once to clinch the second set 6-1 to reach her second consecutive Futures final in as many weeks.

Shweta had earlier shown the tournament exit door to Simran Kaur Sethi in the quarterfinals – the girl who shocked seventh seed Australian Angelique Svinos in the first round.

Earlier, Ankita, who finished runners-up in the two ITF Futures tourneys in Hyderabad last March, made a whirlwind beginning to her campaign in the Lucknow event, whipping another fellow Indian country mate Anushka Bhargava 6-0, 6-1 in the first round.

The talented Indian girl then swept aside Preethi Ujjini 6-1, 6-0 to enter the quarterfinals.

Ankita now takes on eighth seeded Emi Mutaguchi of Japan in the final showdown.

The Japanese girl slugged out third seed Prarthana G. Thombare 6-3, 6-1 in the other semifinal.

Mutaguchi hardly pushed by her Indian opponent, as the former broke her serve to bag the first set 6-3.

The second set was a smooth ride for the Japanese girl as she broke Prarthana’s serve regularly to hasten her victory path.

Third seed Prarthana G. Thombare earlier made it to the singles semifinals, easing past sixth Indian Eetee Maheta 6-4 6-0. She had sailed past Mahitha Dadi Reddy 6-4, 6-3 in the last-eight stage.

It may be worth recalling that Mutaguchi is the lone foreign player left in the fray.

Only three foreign players made it to the main draw – Australia’s Angelique Svinos, bowed out in the first round while China’s Wang XI-Yao also crashed out in the opening round.