ITF India: Ramkumar, Ankita Raina sail into quarterfinals with straight-set wins

There is no better sight than when the national champion Siddharth Vishwakarma is in the mood for a fight.

The 29-year-old wiry left-hander unleashed some of his best game to outwit Korean Woobin Shin 4-6, 6-4, 7-5 in the pre-quarterfinals of the $25,000 ITF men’s tennis tournament at the DLTA Complex on Thursday.

With coach Rattan Sharma’s constant encouragement keeping him focused on the duel for two hours and 26 minutes, Siddharth roared back on losing the first set, which was triggered by a break of serve in the first game.

It was the 662nd-ranked Siddharth who dictated the flow of the match from the start of the second set and broke the Korean in the tenth game of the second set, and the 12th game of the decider to set up a quarterfinal against Ramkumar Ramanathan.

Third seed Ramkumar fired six aces in the last game, out of 12 in the whole match, to convert the fourth match point for a fluent 6-1, 6-2 win against Yunseok Jang of Korea.

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Manish Sureshkumar recovered from losing the second set, to get past the energetic Mitsuki Leong of Malaysia 6-0, 4-6, 6-1. Manish missed a match point and dropped serve in the sixth game but scotched any further hope by closing it out in the next game.

Manish, who had knocked out second seed Khumoyun Sultanov of Uzbekistan earlier, will play fifth seed Nam Hoang Ly of Vietnam.

Karan Singh sustained a strong game to bulldoze his way past Chirag Duhan for the loss of five games. He will play Wishaya Trongcharoenchaikul of Thailand in the quarterfinals.

Shrivalli and Ankita enter quarterfinals of ITF Women W35

Third seed Ankita Raina beat Ekaterina Yashina for the loss of five games to set up a quarterfinal against seventh seed Polina Iatcenko. The Russian beat the finalist of the last two tournaments in Gurugram and Nagpur, Yeonwoo Ku of Korea, after losing the first set.

File Photo: Ankita Raina bt Ekaterina Yashina 6-3, 6-2 to enter the quarterfinals of ITF Women W35 in Indore on Thursday.
| Photo Credit:
Murali Kumar K/The Hindu

Shrivalli Bhamidipaty overcame a dip in form to beat Viktoria Morvayova of Slovakia 6-1, 2-6, 6-2 in the pre-quarterfinals of the $25,000 ITF women’s tennis tournament at the Indore Tennis Club on Thursday.

The 22-year-old Shrivalli, who had knocked out top seed Irina Maria Bara of Romania in the first round, converted five of six break points, to win the two-hour duel. She will play the champion of the Gurugram event, fifth seed Justina Mikulskyte of Lithuania.

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Shrivalli did well to make the doubles semifinals in partnership with Vaidehi Chaudhari. And the duo will play another Indian pair of Zeel Desai and Sahaja Yamalapalli.

Sahaja could not battle on even terms against fourth seed Mananchaya Sawangkaew of Thailand, and managed to eke out five games in the match.