THIRD seed Zeel Desai and fourth seed Ankita Raina recorded straight-sets win while three players quit their respective first round singles because of injury and heat in the MSLTA-NDHTA ITF15K Women’s World Tennis Tour at the NDHTA Ramnagar courts on Wednesday. Zeel got into form early and did not give her opponent A Easwaramurthi any chance as she took the match with the scores reading 6-2, 6-2. Ankita showed her brilliance and why she has been the queen of tennis courts for more than ten years as she beat fellow Indian Soha Sadiq in the first round 6- 3, 6-4. After a rather lop-sided first set, young Soha gave a tough fight to the famed opponent. In early part of the second set, the players traded serves and at one point Soha even took the lead. But an experienced Ankita raised her game a couple of notches to finish it off in two sets. “Opening round matches of any tournament can be a little tricky.

 

\I was a bit rusty and did not know about my opponent much as I had never played her,” Ankita said after the match. Unseeded Kashish Bhatia showed her class in 6-1, 6-2 demolition of Bela Tamkhankar. Heat took its toll as three players Emma Van Poppel, A Nitture and Abhilasha Bista conceded their singles matchesdue to injury and heat.Out of nine singlesmatches, only six werefinished while therewas a walkover in oneof the three doublesmatches scheduled forthe day. Top seed VaishnaviAdkar will face KseniaLaskutova whereasZhibek Kulambayuva(S2) takes on PoojaIngale. Zeel facesEkaterina Khodzhaevaand Ankita (S4) playsSonal Patil in pre-quarterfinals on Thursday. Sheetal Iyer,Tournament Supervisor, is managing the tournament with theteam of chair umpires.The NDHTA courts are being maintainedwell every day by the court maintenance team. Lots of tennis lovers apart fromcity’s budding tennis players andcoaches of various academiesare coming to watch the ITFtournament.