Thaindian News

New Delhi, Dec 25 (IANS) Top seed Masa Zec-Peskiric survived a tough outing against Ukrain’s Anastasiya Vasylyeva on her way to the semi-finals of the $50,000 women’s ITF at the Delhi Lawn Tennis Association (DLTA) courts here Thursday. As the overseas player slugged it away in the singles, India’s challenge in the doubles ended as well with the Uberoi sisters Neha and Shikha and the Bhambri siblings Ankita and Sanaa bowing out in the semi-finals.

The 21-year-old Slovenian Masa, who played a three-setter against Briton’s Emily Webley-Smith Wednesday, struggled to find her rhythm against Anastasiya initially but recovered in time to win 7-5, 6-4.

Anastasiya broke a tentative Masa’s serve in the second game of the first set but was broken back immediately. The Ukrainian once again struck in the seventh game only to meet the same fate in the next.

It was in the eleventh game that Masa got the crucial break to go 6-5 up and then served the set out.

In the second set, Anastasiya tried to claw her way back into the match, with both players exchanging breaks till the fourth game before Masa pulled off what proved to be the decisive break in the seventh game.

A dispirited Anastasiya in her anxiety to get back into the match committed far too many errors and eventually hit a forehand hit long to make her exit from the tournament.

Masa will next meet Serbia’s Bojana Jovanovski who exploited a weak serve of Japan’s Chiaki Okadaue with her strong backhand for an easy 6-3, 6-3 win.

In another quarter-final, eighth-seeded Ukranian Yuliya Beygelzimer, who beat Sanaa and Ankita in the two previous rounds, went down to American Megan Moulton-Levy 3-6, 4-6.

Megan’s semi-final opponents is the third seed from Czech Republic, Sandra Zahlavova,
who overcame mid-match jitters against Hong Kong’s Ling Zhang to triumph 6-1, 4-6, 6-2.

In the doubles, Neha and Shikha lost 4-6,5-7 to Emily and Megan in the semi-finals.

Ankita and Sanaa too lost 4-6, 3-6, to second-seeded I-Hsuan Hwang of Chinese Taipei and Zhang.