Megha Vakharia had no teething problems in her maiden senior ITF Women’s

Sai, whose steady serving included two aces, got more than necessary help from Karoline Sadaj (Poland) who had seven doubles faults — four of them in succession in the first game of the second set. But the Indian, apart from prolonging the inevitable by dropping three matchpoints, lost serve twice but had enough ammunition to tide through.

Megha grabbed a break in the fourth game, slammed an ace in the seventh and was ahead in 30 minutes while the Swiss was still warming up.

Tallo had a doublefault in the final game, out of a total of six in the match, and Megha returned right on the Swiss’ foot on her way to another break and the set.

The Swiss slammed the ball down in disgust and the offending object ricochetted onto a spectator, inviting a default. However, while the chair umpire and the player deliberated over the next move, Megha was on court, willing both to carry on with the game. Tallo escaped a default, got a code violation, and continued, giving the Mumbai girl a chance to win convincingly.

The Indian, relentless in her campaign, broke serve in the second after dropping her own in the opening game. That included a long rally which Megha won after consistently slugging it out from the baseline, an indication of better things to come. She denied the Swiss giant, who towered over Megha, three game points before earning the break.

The decisive breakthrough came in the sixth game, with a benevolent Tallo netting two serves, and by the time the lights came on, the Swiss was serving to stay in the match at 2-5.

On her own courts, the Maharashtra State Lawn Tennis Association trainee made sure that Tallo did not have to stay on too long.

Results (seedings in prefix; country, rankings in parenthesis)

Women’s singles (second round): 1-Manisha Malhotra (Ind, 335) bt Isha Lakhani (Ind) 6-1 6-1, 8-Antonia Matic (Ger, 687) bt Nina Egger (Aut) 6-2 6-3, 3-J Sai Jayalakshmy (Ind, 445) bt Karoline Sadaj (Pol, 788) 6-1 6-2, 7-Archana Venkatraman (Ind, 617) bt Janaki Krishnamoorthy (Ind) 6-4 7-5, Megha Vakharia (Ind) bt Lucia Tallo (Sui) 6-2 6-2, 4-Satomi Kinjo (Jap, 471) bt Maja Mlakar (Slo, 1084) 7-6 (7-3) 7-5, Sonal Phadke (Ind) bt Ana Sismundini (Esp, 885) 6-2 6-2, 2-Urska Vesenjak (Slo, 430) bt Karishma Patel (Ind, 1021) 6-1 6-2