Wakui shocks Ashvarya in ITF tennis

Maya Wakui of Japan caused a flutter in the Jaypee ITF Women’s Futures tennis tournament in progress at Oudh Gymkhana Club,Lucknow when she upset third seed Ashvarya Shrivastava of India by 6-2,6-4 in the 1st round match of the main draw,on Monday. It was not a good day for the Indians in the singles section as they lost in their matches against foreign opponents. Another upset was caused in the first round when Yvonne Neuwirth of Austria defeated sixth seed Ankita Raina of India by 6-1,6-1. However,fifth seed Sharmada Bali of India and eighth seed Sheetal Goutham,also of India,emerged winners in their respective first round matches.

Four women’s doubles pre-quarterfinal matches were also held on Monday. In some of the important first round matches to be played on Tuesday,talented player Rushmi Chakravarthi who is the second seed will be facing Kaori Aoyama of Japan at 10.00 am. Top seed Anja Prislan of Slovenia will face Chun-Yan He of China in the second match on court number 2 on Tuesday. The first match on court number 2 will be between fourth seed Celine Cattaneo of France,who is the winner of the Delhi leg of the tournament,and Aishwarya Agarwal of India. Talking to The Indian Express,tournament director JS Kaul said,“The results are very surprising. The Chinese and the Japanese who have little or no experience on grass have done well today,while Indians expected to do well on grass have lost in their matches. Two days ago some foreign players were touching the grass and were asking whether it was a synthetic turf or natural grass.”

The Results: Singles (1st Round): Sharmada Balu (seed-5; Ind) beat Natalla Khaniejo (Ind) 6-1,6-4; Stephane Hirsch (Aut) beat Garima Watani (Ind) 6-2,6-2; He Sirui (Chn) beat Shani Nehel (Ind) 6-0,6-2; Yvonne Neuwirth (Aut) upsets Ankita Raina (Seed 6; Ind) 6-1,6-1; Anna Maria (Aut) beat Sagarika Phadke (Ind) 6-1,6-1; Maya Wakui (Jpn) upset Ashvarya Shrivastava (seed-3; Ind) 6-2,6-4; Sheetal Goutham (seed 8; India) beat Gopika Kapoor (Ind) 6-2,6-1; Ratnika Batra (Ind) beat Sharon Sanchana Paul (Ind) 4-6,7-5,6-2. Doubles (1st Round): Nidhi Chilumula (Ind) & Marsia Gianotto (Aus) beat Natalla Khaniejo (Ind) & Nehel Sahni (Ind) 6-4,6-4; Anja Prislan (Slo) & Kyra Shroff (Ind) beat Sharmada Balu (Ind) Sirui He (Chn) 6-3,7-6(5); Pia Konig (Aut) & Yvonne Neuwirth (Aut) beat Chika Terasawa (Jpn) & Ya Zhou (Chn) 6-4,6-3; Ratnika Batra (Ind) & Sharon Sanchana (Ind) beat Sagrika Phadke (Ind) & Garima Vatwani (Ind) 4-6,6-3,10-6 (super tie break).