Radhika sends back lone foreigner

MUMBAI, APRIL 19: On a day of changes, Radhika Tulpule did her bit by scripting the exit of the second seed from the first leg of the 50...

MUMBAI, APRIL 19: On a day of changes, Radhika Tulpule did her bit by scripting the exit of the second seed from the first leg of the 5000 ITF Women8217;s Circuit tennis tournament at the G A Ranade Tennis Centre today.

With a whole lot of players from the original draw pulling out, the entire draw and the seeding had to be re-written. It also left just one foreign entrant in the draw, Russia8217;s Anna Nefedova, ranked 595, who was upset by Tulpule in the first round itself. The tournament now is a virtual Nationals with J Sai Jayalakshmy as top seed getting a first round bye. Number four seed Archana Venkatraman too had withdrawn citing a painful shoulder as reason.

Tulpule scored a 6-3, 6-2 win in quick time, closing the first set with an ace and then struggling a little bit to finish the second. She suffered the jitters while leading 5-2 in the second, serving a double fault and going down a break point.

But fortunately for the 17-year-old Indian, a winning forehand down the line followed by one more ofthe Russian8217;s many mistakes ensured a second round entry for Tulpule and helped earn her highest-ranked scalp yet.

8220;I just tried to dominate and fortunately, the Russian was never at her best in this heat. But the match was not as easy as the score seems to suggest,8221; said Tulpule, playing her maiden ITF seniors8217; circuit.

With that big hurdle out of the way, Tulpule should make the semi-finals from the lower half of the draw. She has to play Karishma Patel next.

City girl Sonal Phadke had an easy 6-1, 6-0 victory but having even lesser trouble in her first round was Sricharanya Thyagarajan, scoring 6-0, 6-0 over lucky loser Sonal Marker.

Results

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Singles first round: Sonal Phadke Ind bt Tarminder Grover Ind 6-1, 6-0; Radhika Mandke Ind bt Rekha Natarajan Ind 6-0, 7-6 8-6; Radhika Tulpule Ind bt Anna Nefedova Rus 6-3, 6-2; Karishma Patel Ind bt Nandini Perumal Ind 6-0, 6-3; Sricharanya Thyagarajan Ind bt Sonal Marker Ind 6-0, 6-0; Nikita Bharadwaj Ind btVishnupreetham Mahalingam Ind 6-2, 6-1; Padmapreetham Mahalingam Ind bt Shivani Bhatt Ind 6-1, 6-1.