India’s Rutuja Bhosale shocked second seeded Valentini Grammatikopoulou with a remarkable 4-6, 6-4, 6-0 victory in the singles opening round of the ITF Women’s Open in Bengaluru on Wednesday.
The unseeded Bhosale lost the first set but fought back impressively to overcome her World No 198 Greek opponent in a thrilling three-setter to enter the Round-of-16 of the USD 40,000 tournament.
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Another Indian Zeel Desai, who had won her second ITF women’s tour title last month, also made a bright beginning with a facile 6-3, 6-2 victory against German qualifier Rebecca Sarah Sekulic.
The 24-year-old Ahmedabad-born Desai is a wild card entrant.
Top-rated Indian Ankita Raina also lived up to the expectations and made a winning start to her campaign by defeating compatriot Vanshita Pathania 6-3, 6-0.
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Vaidehi Chaudhari, who had two excellent outings in the qualifiers, could not repeat the performance and went down to sixth seeded Indonesian Madelyn Nugroho 2-6, 1-6.
Sahaja Yamalapalli, another Indian wildcard entrant, also suffered a 6-7 (8), 3-6 defeat against Lativa’s Diana Marcinkevica.
Earlier, 15-year-old tennis sensation Brenda Fruhvirtova of Czech Republic vindicated her top seeding in the event with a crushing 6-1, 6-0 win over Chinese Taipei’s Lee Ya-Hsuan.
Fruhvirtova made her Grand Slam debut in Australian Open earlier this year.
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