Shruti heaves a Sai

BANGALORE, APRIL 30: For the second day running, Shruti Dhawan emerged supreme in the ITF women's satellite tennis tournament at the KSLT...

BANGALORE, APRIL 30: For the second day running, Shruti Dhawan emerged supreme in the ITF women8217;s satellite tennis tournament at the KSLTA Stadium. The sixth seed, who had ousted No 3 seed Anna Nefedova on Thursday, scripted yet another tale of upset on Friday by showing tournament favourite Sai Jayalakshmy the door with a gritty 7-6 7-0, 7-6 7-2 win.

That Shruti did not wilt under the pressure when playing the tie-break should be a factor her opponent in the final slated for the morrow Rushmi Chakravarthi should be wary of. Rushmi, for her part on Friday recorded a fluent 6-1, 6-3 win against the tournament8217;s second seed Archana Venkatraman.

The day began with Rushmi, relying on her big serves, brushing aside whatever little challenge Archana managed to put up, but the Shruti-Jayalakshmy encounter turned out to be more evenly contested, in terms of the players struggling to hold their serves.

After winning the opening game of the match on her serve, Jayalakshmy did well to break Shruti in thesecond. But Shruti bounced back immediately killing the advantage by breaking her opponent8217;s serve in the next game. That trade of serves were only glimpses of things to follow. More exchanges of serve Jayalakshmy had breaks in the sixth, tenth and 12th and Shruti in the fifth, ninth, and 11th pushed the fate of the set into the tie-break. And the tie-break turned out to be an anti-climax with Shruti winning it at love helped by the indifferent service form of Jayalakshmy.

The happenings in the second set were remarkably repetitive of the first. With a serve rhythm that looked to have deserted her completely, it was only the frequent unforced errors which Shruti came up with that kept Jayalakshmy in the reckoning. Shruti interspersed the errors with some attractive play which helped her emerge victorious.

The second set tie-break, a result of the barrage barter of serves Shruti8217;s breaks came in the second, sixth, tenth and 12th, which were nullified by Jayalakshmy8217;s breaks in the fifth, seventh, ninthand 11th was not as lop-sided as in the first, at least in terms of the score-line. Shruti8217;s prowess in the returns stood her in good stead as she booked her place in the final.

The first semifinal was as one-sided an affair as the score-line reflected. Rushmi began the match with a big ace, a feat she repeated six more times in the match, and never looked back. Archana, on the contrary, was woeful in her play and in fact held her own serve only once throughout the match in the fifth game of the second set.

Results Semifinals

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Singles: 5-Rushmi Chakravarthi bt 2-Archana Venkatraman 6-1, 6-3; 6-Shruti Dhawan bt 1-Sai Jayalakshmy 7-6 7-0, 7-6 7-2.