Thaindian News

New Delhi, June 17 (IANS) Eighth-seeded Indian Prerna Bhambri proved no match for unseeded Yang Zhaoxuan of China, going down 1-6, 1-6 in the singles semifinals of the $10,000 ITF women’s tennis tournament at the DLTA complex here Friday.

Prerna, who had not dropped a set in the tournament and lost only seven games in her three matches before running into the Chinese, was the only surviving Indian in the semifinals.

Yang, who began with two double faults, was fluent on both the flanks and chased down everything. Her groundstrokes were unerring and had Prerna in a bind. A rash of errors from the Indian hastened her exit.

In the title clash, Yang plays sixth-seeded Korean Hae-Sung Kim who outlasted third-seeded Mexican Nadia Abdala after a three hour, 39 minutes marathon, winning 4-6, 7-5, 6-4.

Later, Hae-Sung and Ju-Eun defeated top-seeded pair Rushmi Chakravarthi and Israel’s Keren Shlomo 6-3, 6-4, to win the doubles title.

In the singles, both Hae-Sung and Nadia played to a standstill. The tall and wiry Mexican’s grounstrokes lacked depth as she chose to impart spin to her returns, and Hae-Sung put them away easily. Her attempts to go for the line resulted in errors and her sluggish courtcraft restricted her to cope with Korean’s sharp returns.

The Korean, light-footed and with punch in her grounstrokes, rallied from a set down to break Nadia straightaway in the second set for a 5-2 lead. She, however, slumped into errors midway through the set and allowed the Mexican to level 5-5. It, however, proved to be a brief reprieve for Nadia, who dropped her serve and soon it was a set all.

In the decider, a tired Nadia dropped her serve early in second game to go down 0-3 but fought back to make it 3-3. But she failed to maintain the tempo and an error-strewn tenth game from her gave Koean the set and the match.