Sunkara upsets top seed in Asian Juniors

Published>Fri, May 28 10 10:23 PM

New Delhi, May 28 (IANS) Rishika Sunkara, the lone Indian girl in the fray, shocked Japanese top seed Eri Hozumi 7-6(2), 6-0 to cruise into the semifinals of the Asian Junior Tennis Championships here Friday.

Seventh-seeded Sunkara now plays another Japanese Miho Kowase, seeded ninth, who took out last week ITF junior winner and fourth seed Zi Yang 5-7, 6-2, 6-1.

A see-saw first set had rapid break of serves and unforced errors from both Sunkara and Hozumi. Sunkara had a chance to serve out the set in the 12th game but the Japanese broke her serve to enforce the tie-break, where the Indian prevailed.

A disprited Hozumi's errors only mounted in the second set and Sunkara wasted no time in taking the set in a jiffy and along with it the match.

A jubiliant Sunkara admitted that she needs to work on her serve.

'I am happy the way I played though my serve was not consistent, especially my second serve and she (Hozumi) exploited that. Also, my backhand which is usually the strong point in my game was erratic. It was important for me to win the tie-break and that gave me the confidence in the second set. She also was making a lot of unforced errors and that made things easy for me,' said Sunkara, who is coached by Aditya Sachdeva.

In the boys' singles, sixth-seeded Vaidik Munshaw was the lone Indian to enter the semifinals when he beat compatriot Mansingh Athare 6-2, 6-3.

Fifth-seeded Indian Ronit Singh Bisht gave up the fight midway to go down 3-6, 0-6 to China's Bowen Ouyang. Ouyang plays Munshaw next.

Results:

Girls' singles: Rishika Sunkara (IND)[7] beat Eri Hozumi (JPN) [1] 7-6 (2), 6-0; Miho Kowase (JPN) [9] beat Zi Yang (CHN) [4] 5-7, 6-2, 6-1; Lin Zhu (CHN) [5] beat Miyu Kato (JPN) [3] 6-3, 6-2; Ran Tian (CHN) [2] beat Sabina Sharipova (UZB) [8] 4-6, 7-5, 6-1.

Boys' singles: Bowen Ouyang (CHN) [2] beat Ronit Singh Bisht (IND) [5] 6-3, 6-0; Warit Sornbutnark (THA) [8] beat Sai Kartik Nakireddi (IND) [4] 6-2, 6-1; Vaidik Munshaw (IND) [6] beat Mansingh Athare (IND) 6-2, 6-3; Chuhan Wang (CHN) [1] beat Rakshay Thakkar (IND) [9] 6-4, 6-1.

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