Nidhi Chilumulla, Prarthana Thombre, Bhuvna Kalva and Vaishnavi Peddy Reddy came through the qualifying rounds to make it to the main draw of the USD 25000 Endurance Aurangabad Open Women's ITF Tennis Championships here today.
Chilumula outplayed Katharina Lehnert of Philipines 6-3, 6-2, while Thombare put out compatriot Shweta Rana 6-3, 6-2 in the final qualifying stage.
17-year-old Peddy Reddy scored a credible 6-4, 7-5 win over Keren Shlomo from Israel and Bhuvna raked up a 6-1, 6-3 win over Lee Pei Chi of Taipei to enter the main draw of the tournament organised by the EMMTC under the auspices of the ITF, AITA and the MSLTA at their tennis courts.
Britt Geukens of Belgium, Cristina Ene of Romania, Ching Wen Hsu of Taipei and Victoria Muntean of France also qualified for the main draw commencing tomorrow.
Magda Linette of Poland, ranked 29 in the world, has been given the top billing, while Ankita Raina is the lone Indian seed and being ranked no.5 in the seeding list which was announced by ITF Supervisor Punit Gupta.
Following are the results of final qualifying round: Nidhi Chilumula (India) bt Katharina Lehnert (Philipines) 6-3, 6-2; Britt Geukens (Belgium) bt Riya Bhatia (India) 6-3, 6-4; Cristina Ene (Romania) bt. Prerna Bhambri (India) 7-6 (9-7), 7-5; Prarthana Thombare (India) bt Shweta Rana (India) 6-3, 6-2; Vaishnavi Peddy Reddy (India) bt Keren Shlomo (Israel) 6-4, 7-5; Ching Wen Hsu (Taipei) bt Sneha Devi Reddy (India) 7-6(5) 4-6, 6-2; Kalva Bhuvna (India) bt Lee Pei Chi (Taipei) 6-1, 6-3; Victoria Muntean (France) bt Tang Hao Chen (China) 6-7(5) 6-2, 6-0.
Main draw seedings with their world rankings:
1. Magda Linette (Pol,129), 2. Kai-Lin Zhang (CHN,166), 3. Zhaoxuan Yang (CHN,222), 4. Vartachaya Wongteanchai (THA,231), 5. Ankita Raina(Ind,242), 6. Riko Sawayanagi (JPN,252), 7. Tadeja Majeric (SLO,253), 8. Xinyun Han (CHN,256).
