AURANGABAD: Wild card Rutuja Bhosale will take on giant-killer Ramya Natarajan while Mahak Jain will clash with fifth seed Nidhi Chilumula in the singles semifinals of the USD 15,000 Endurance Aurangabad Open Women’s ITF Tennis Championships here tomorrow.
In the semi-finals, left-handed Chennai girl Ramya outgunned her experienced rival Shweta Rana 6-1 6-7(4) 6-3 in a two-hour, five-minute encounter while Rutuja dumped 16-year-old Yubarani Banerjee 6-0 6-1 in just 50 minutes.
In a battle of next generation of Indian players, 15-year-old Mahek Jain played intelligently to stop the progress of 18-year-old Pranjala Yadlapalli 7-5 6-3 in 1 hour and 38 minutes.
Mahak will now take on the lone remaining seed in the tournament – fifth seeded Nidhi who upset second-seeded Xiaoxi Zhao of China 6-3 7-6(5) in 1 hour 50 minutes.
In the most interesting match of the day Ramya went for her strokes from the first point to race to a 5-0 lead and then take the first set at 6-1.
In the second set too she raced to a 3-0 lead before Shweta settled into her rhythm to draw level and then take the set to a tie break which she won to level the sets.
In the third and deciding set Ramya broke Shweta in the 5th and 7th games before clinching it 6-3 and make it to the last four.
In the upset of the day Nidhi broke the Xiaomi’s serve twice to win the first set 6-3.
Zhao stormed back by breaking the Indian’s serve in the 4th and the 8th games to take a 5-3 lead, but the Hyderabad girl fought back strongly to break the Chinese in the 9th and 11th games and force a tie-break which she won convincingly.
Other results: Doubles (Quarter-finals): Snehadevi Reddy/Rishika Sunkara bt Ramya Natarajan/Fiona Codino (Fra) 6-3 6-4; Rutuja Bhosale/Kanika Vaidya bt Rushmi Chakravarthy/ Sai Samhita Chamarthi 6-0 6-2. (AGENCIES)
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