Sonal Patil overpowered Russian Elina Nepliy in a marathon three-setter semi-final of the MSLTA-NDHTA ITF 15K Women’s World Tennis Tour being played at NDHTA’s Ramnagar courts on Saturday. The 21-year-old Sonal, who has been regularly training under veteran coach Hemant Bendrey in Pune for the last 10 years, fought back from a set down to stun the better rated player in the match that lasted three hours and fifteen minutes. Elina, who had upset top seed Vaishnavi Adkar in the quarters, looked in supreme touch and took the first set 6-1. Sonal came back strongly to level the scores one-all with a 6-3 win in the second set.

 

In the final set, both players played their best to make it 5-5. At that moment, Sonal made a silent prayer for a few seconds and it got answered as she received the thrust that she needed to overcome Elina’s power, taking the third set 7-5 and with it a step closer to her maiden ITF title. She will face Kazakhstan’s second seed Zhibek Kulambayeva in the final starting at 10.00 am on Sunday. In the second semi-final, Kulambayeva outsmarted third seed Zeel Desai, who was nursing a shoulder injury but played boldly before going down 7-6 (7-2), 6-3 in two hours and 15 minutes.

 

 

In the women’s doubles final, top seeded pair of Kulambayeva and Russia Ekaterina Yashika pipped Russian duo of Elina Nepliy and Ksenia Laskutova in a thrilling super tie-breaker that went down to the wire. The first set went to Elina-Ksenia 7-5. In the second set, Kulambayeva-Yashika came back stronger and levelled the match with a 6-4 win. In the see-saw decider, Kulambayeva-Yashika prevailed 10-6 to win the crown. At the outset, Shravan Hardikar (IAS), Managing Director of Maha Metro Corporation and Secretary ITF Committee, inaugurated the semi-finals. He was welcomed by NDHTA team’s Kumar Kale - President; Dr Sudhir Bhiwapurkar - Secretary; Vikram Naidu - Jt Secretary, Vijay Naidu - Treasurer and Ganesh Pagay - EC member. Vijay Naidu conducted the prize distribution function and proposed a vote of thanks.