Thaindian News

New Delhi, May 12 (IANS) India’s Prerna Bhambri waded through a tough three-setter yet again to enter the semifinals, outlasting South Korean qualifier Su Jeong Jang 6-7(2), 7-5, 6-2, in the $10,000 ITF women’s tournament at DLTA complex here Thursday.

Prerna, who won all her matches in the tournament over three sets, is now the only Indian left in the singles.

The other Indian, Ankita Raina, ran out of steam in the decider despite making a splendid recovery in the second set before losing to Japanese Misa Kinoshita 6-7(2), 7-6 (3), 2-6 in nearly three hours.

Kinoshita plays Prerna Friday for a place in the final.

In the other quarterfinals, third-seeded Keren Shlomo of Israel swept aside eight-seeded German Jessica Sabeshinskaja 6-2, 6-3, and now plays Briton’s Manisha Foster, who made short work of her match against Japanese Etsuko Kitazaki 6-1, 6-3.

It was another long day for Delhi girl Prerna, who struggled to get into a rhythm and a stream of unforced errors spoilt her good work. Her strokes were smooth and packed with power, but she could not string them with consistency. She made it up with resilience to wriggle out of tight situations.

The nimble-footed Su, on the other hand, banked on a solid serve and courtcraft to counter Prerna’s predominantly baseline play.

The two players exchanged breaks twice in the first set to enforce a tie-breaker, in which Su was better-equipped.

The Korean, however, couldn’t carry on with the momentum in the second set and made the mistake of going for winners as Prerna looked good for long rallies. The Indian was impressive with some stunning strokes, especially on the backhand.

The Indian, leading 4-1 with two breaks of serve, failed to press home the advantage and showed nerves at the big points. She dropped her serve in successive games. Two backhand errors and a double-fault let her down the first time and she then dumped a high ball, which seemed to be her weak point, into the net.

With the game back on serve at 4-4, Su, struggling to cope with searing heat, played aggressively to attack Prerna’s serve but the Indian dug in. A few ambitious shots from Su gave the Indian three break points in the 11th game. Prerna whipped a powerful forehand return that brushed past Korean’s racquet for the winning point. She then served out the set with another forehand winner, but not before staving off three break points.

In the decider, Prerna broke Su early in the third game only to drop her serve immediately. But this time she quickly got her act together, reeling off four games to take the set and the match.