India’s rising star Sonal Patil ends second best n Sports Reporter SECOND seed Kazakhstan’s Zhibek Kulambayeva emerged champion in the MSLTA-NDHTA ITF $15K Women’s World Tennis Tour that concluded at the MSLTA Tennis Academy in Ramnagar on Sunday. Handing youngster Sonal Patil from Kolhapur a lesson or two in top notch tennis, Kulambayeva raced to 6-1, 6-3 straight sets win in the summit clash on the final day. A decent crowd that had gathered at the venue was treated to some brilliant rallies, powerful forehand and backhand volleys, some mind-blowing drop shots and a few aces too. After a lop-sided first set, Sonal Patil tried hard to come back in the second set but after the score 3-4, Kulambayeva never looked back and unleashed her power game and took the set and title. With this Kulambayeva finished the event with twin titles as she had won the doubles on Saturday. Kulambayeva was clearly the player of the tournament. The 26-year old who celebrated her birthday during the tournament said she has been training for the last 20 years at Almaty in Kazakhstan.

 

With a lean and mean body fit for playing tennis, the champion said she wants to play a Grand Slam at least in doubles, where her WTA ranking in under 200. The winner took home a prize money of $2352 and runner-up was richer by $1470. Each player of the main draw got a share of the prize money as per ITF rules. Kumar Kale, President NDHTA and Dr Parinita Fuke, former Corporator NMC, gave away the prizes. Present at the gathering were NDHTA officials Dr Sudhir Bhiwapurkar, Vikram Naidu, Ganesh Pagay, Murli Asudani and MSLTA Councillor Shiv Om Mor. Tournament Supervisor Leena Nageshkar and Umpire Saikat Roy conducted the finals. Dr Bhiwapurkar informed that MSLTA has a vision of conducting 20 ITF tournaments (men & women) in one year. This ambitious vision is being spearheaded by President Prashant Sutar. Tournament Secretary and NDHTA Treasurer Vijay Naidu compered the prize distribution function and proposed a vote of thanks. The event was sponsored by MIL, MADCL, NMC, ITF, AITA and MSLTA while the entire NDHTA team worked overtime to make the tournament a huge success.