The recently concluded ITF Women’s World Tennis Tour W15 tournament at Mysuru featured all the emerging talents in India.
Shrivalli Bhamidipaty & Arunkumar Lakshmi Prabha were the bright spots among them along with solid performances from Riya Bhatia & Smriti Bhasin.
India’s number 3 ranked player & the top seed, Shrivalli Bhamidipaty lost a close final to the 2nd seeded American Jessie Aney 6-3,3-6, 6-7(6-8). It might be a bit disappointing result considering that Shrivalli was the favorite going into the event on the back of her quarterfinal runs at W75 events in Australia last month.
She was never challenged throughout the tournament until the final. Her opponent more renowned for her doubles game had made the main draw of the US Open this year. The final run was enough to propel her to a career-high ranking of 303, just one spot below Ankita Raina.
She would be looking for some deep runs at the upcoming events to get into the qualifying draw at the Australian Open next year.
The 19-year-old Arunkumar Lakshmi Prabha from Tamil Nadu impressed everyone with a run to the Semifinals from the qualifiers. She defeated the 6th seed & compatriot Soha Sadiq 6-2, 6-2 in the first round.
She followed it up by beating another higher-ranked player, Yashaswini Panwar 6-3, 6-3. In the quarterfinals, she beat the 3rd seed Elena Jamshidi from Denmark 6-4, 2-1(ret).
She lost out in the semifinals to the eventual winner Jessie Aney from the USA 1-6, 0-6. This would give her a lot of confidence going into the Bengaluru W15
event this week.
Riya Bhatia had a good run as well winning the doubles title partnering Jessie Aney from the USA. In the doubles final, they thrashed the Indian duo of Akanksha Dileep Nitture & Soha Sadiq 6-1, 6-1. Seeded 4, she also made the semifinals in the singles event losing out to Shrivalli 3-6, 2-6.
In doubles, the 4th-seeded local pairing of Soha Sadiq & Akanksha Dileep Nitture reached
the finals
The other notable performances from Indian players included quarter-final appearances from
the unheralded Smriti Bhasin defeating the 5th seed Carolann Delauney en route and Pooja Ingale who defeated the 8th seed Humera Bharamus
Written By Nithish
