LUCKNOW, MAY 12: Unseeded Archana Venkatraman upset second-seeded Shruti Dhawan in straight sets to storm into the semi-finals of the ITF Women's Masters Tennis here today.Archana stunned Shruti 6-4, 6-2 on the third day of the tournament as the Oudh Gymkhana Club Grass Courts proved the graveyard for seeded players with the ouster of third seed Radhika Tulpule, winner of Mumbai-leg of the three-leg circuit.Tulpule won the first set but suddenly lost her concentration to go down 6-3, 2-6, 6-7 (3-7) to Janaki Krishnamoorthy.Top seed Rushmi Chakravorty, however, did not face much problems in disposing of Sumitra Rao 6-2, 6-4.Number four ranked Sai Jayalakshmy, coming off an indifferent form in one of the premier event for the women players in the country, went past Geeta Manohar 6-1, 7-5 with ease as the tournament looked set to thrown up a new champion after the winners of the three previous legs made their exit.Shruti had won the Bangalore-leg while Russian Anna Nefedova, who was ousted by SaiJayalakshmy yesterday, clinched the title in the Delhi last week.In the first semifinal tomorrow, Rushmi will take on Sai, India number three women player, while Janaki would meet Archana Venkatraman in the second.In the doubles, Rushmi Chakravorty and Sai Jayalakshmy blanked Tara Kanbarginath and Sumitra Rao 6-0, 6-0 to set up a title clash with Gautam Sheetal-Shruti Dhawan who beat the Venkatraman sisters, Aarti and Archana, 3-6, 6-1, 6-2.In the first match between Janaki Krishnamoorthy and Radhika Tulpule both won their serves easily, but Janaki broke Radhika's serve in the third game in deuce to take a 2-1 lead. In return Radhika also broke Janaki's serve and levelled the score 2-2. Radhika again broke Janaki's service in the 6th and 8th games to win the first set at 6-3.In the second set both again broke each other's serves in the first two games. But in the sixth game, Janaki broke Radhika at 40-0 when Radhika double-faulted helping Janaki to a 4-2 lead. Radhika again made the same mistakein the 8th game when at 40-40 she double-faulted and lost the second set at 2-6 and levelled the score 1-1.In the deciding set both broke one service each. In the fourth game Radhika was trailing 0-40 at one stage but she recovered and won the game to level the score 2-2. The score was tied at 6-6 after twelve games but in the tie breaker Janaki won the set and match at.
