National tennis: Prerna to face Rishika in women's final

New Delhi - Top seeds Rishika Sunkara and Prerna Bhambri won in straight sets to enter the women’s singles final of the Fenesta Open National Tennis Championship Friday.

Top seed and local girl Rishika made easy work of third seed Natasha Palha of Goa beating her 6-2, 6-1 on Court 2 of the R.K. Khanna Tennis Complex here.

Another Delhi girl and No.2 seed Prerna Bhambri overcame sixth seed Sri Vaishnavi Pedireddy of Andhra Pradesh 6-4, 6-4 in the other semifinal.

The first set proved to be a topsy-turvy one with neither players able to hold their service games.

Sri Vaishnavi drew first blood early breaking Prerna in the third game of the match, taking a 2-1 lead. But the Delhi girl retaliated immediately by breaking back.

Both players again broke serves over the next two games.

However, Sri Vaishnavi, down 4-5, had to win the game to stay in the set. But a double fault and a lucky net point for Prerna gave two break points to the second seed, of which she converted the second one with a splendid backhand down the line winner.

The second set was also the same story with both players exchanging service games regularly.

Again, Prerna, leading 5-4, had three match points on Sri Vaishnavi’s serve of which she converted the first one.

Prerna’s serve was not the best today as three double faults cost her two service games. Her first serve percentage was also going down in the first set which improved later on. Though the groundstroke quality was good, both players many errors.

Pleased with the win Prerna said: “This was the my best match of the tournament. I knew her game well, having played her earlier. She usually plays well in the second set which she did here too. But I played well and converted the important points.”

The Delhi girl will be facing top seed and doubles partner Rishika in the final Saturday.

“It will be interesting. We know each other’s game pretty well so it will be fun to see what happens tomorrow. I am expecting a good game of tennis.”

Prerna and Rishika later lost the women’s doubles final to Treta Bhattacharya and Natasha Pahla 4-6, 6-0, 6-10.

In the men’s singles, top seed Jeevan Nendunchezhiyan of Tamil Nadu took less than an hour to dispatch Uttar Pradesh’s third seed Siddharth Rawat 6-1, 6-0 and will next face Maharashtra’s Arjun Khade, who overcame a spirited challenge from Tamil Nadu’s Ramkumar Ramanathan 6-3, 6-2.

Rawat could hardly challenge the repertoire of Jeevan’s strokes and the third seed failed to pose any threat managing to hold his serves just once in the entire match.

In the last match of the day, Mohit Mayur Jayaprakash and Ramkumar bagged the men’s doubles title by beating Vivek Shokeen and Kaza Vinayak Sharma 5-7, 7-6(5), 10-3 in the final.

Results:

Men’s singles semifinals: Jeevan Nendunchezhiyan bt Siddharth Rawat 6-1, 6-0; Arjun Khade bt Ramkumar Ramanathan 6-3, 6-2.

Women’s singles semifinals: Rishika Sunkara bt Natasha Palha 6-2, 6-1; Prerna Bhambri bt Sri Vaishnavi Pedireddy 6-4, 6-4.

Girls U-18 singles semifinals: Pranjala Yadlapalli bt Nehal Sahni 6-3, 6-2; Tarannum Handa bt C. Sai Samitha 3-6, 7-6(9), 7-5.

Boys U-18 singles semifinals: Rishab Aggarwal bt Neeraj Elangovan 6-1, 6-1; Karan Salwan bt Shaikh Abdullah 6-3, 4-6, 7-6.

Girls U-18 doubles final: Himani Mor-Vanshika Sawhney bt Jahnvi Gupta-Vineeta Singh 6-2, 6-3.

Women’s doubles final: Treta Bhattacharya-Natasha Pahla bt Prerna Bhambri-Rishika Sunkara 6-4, 0-6, 10-6.

Men’s doubles finals: Mohit Mayur Jayaprakash-Ramkumar Ramanathan bt Vivek Shokeen-Kaza Vinayak Sharma 5-7, 7-6(5), 10-3.