Sheetal in quarters

Pune, Oct 21: Gritty Gautam Sheetal today did exactly what a player needs to do when it matters the most. The 17-year-old Bangalore girl fought everything, from the scorching afternoon sun to the power-packed returns of her opponent second seed Anna Nefedova of Russia, to enter the quarter-finals of the BPL Mobile second leg ITF women’s tennis tournament, with a 6-2, 7-5 win.

Joining Sheetal in the last eight, with an upset win, was the former National hardcourt champion Janaki Krishnamurthi. The Mumbai girl overcame a bout of flu which had kept her out of the Ahmedabad leg and the first set loss, to knock out fifth seed Aarti, one of the Venkatraman sisters, 4-6, 6-4, 6-0.

Sixth seed Rushmi Chakravarthi and eighth seed Shruti Dhawan faced little resistance from their opponents while other seeds had a comparatively easy outing against their unseeded rivals.

Sheetal today wrapped up the first set in just 20 minutes with two breaks in the second and eighth but slipped after gaining a 4-2 lead in tyhesecond. Anna clawed back to lead 5-4 as Sheetal bagged the next three games in a row.