Sai of relief for top seed, meets Tulpule in final

If Tulpule dismantled the third-seeded Bangalore engineer Arathi Venkatraman, 6-2, 6-2 in 80 minutes, top seed Jayalakshmy had to battle nerves and a well-serving Rushmi Chakravarthi in a 5-7, 6-1, 6-4 near two-hour Russian Roulette.

The only thing that seemed to bother Tulpule, playing in a WTA tournament and surprisingly, at the Maharashtra State Lawn Tennis Association courts for the first time in her career, were her serves. She had six double faults, often at crucial junctures, but was not too bothered at the end of it all.

It was Venkatraman’s two successive double faults — thefirst to go down match point — which made the final impact. “I am actually serving well this week,” said the 17-year-old Tulpule, who hasn’t played Jayalakshmy and has no idea what to expect.

MARATHON: With two match points in hand, Jayalakshmy was all set to head for the showers when the jitters set in. She returned wide, netted a forehand and could feel her hands tremble. Then the opportunity came for her favourite shot and this time she got the overhead — a bother this week — right. Advantage was converted with a backhand volley, which just skimmed over the net, powered over by a fervent Jayalakshmy imploring it to do so.

“I don’t know what would have happened if Rushmi had returned it,” said Jayalakshmy, who lost from a position of convenience in the opening set.

The serve that served her so well unfortunately deserted Rushmi Chakravarthi. She had two double faults at break points to lose the first and fifth games and Jayalakshmy was back in the match.

Results
Singlessemi-finals: Jayaram Sai Jayalakshmy (Ind) bt Rushmi Chakravarthi (Ind) 5-7, 6-1, 6-4; Radhika Tulpule (Ind) bt Arathi Venkatraman (Ind) 6-2, 6-2.

Final line-up: Sai vs Radhika.