Zeel and wildcard Dhruti qualify for main draw

Zeel Desai and wild card Dhruthi Venugopal scored impressive wins in the final qualifying round to join six other Indians in the main draw of the USD 25,000 NECC-ITF Women's Tennis tournament at the Deccan Gymkhana courts here today.

Dhruti, with a significantly better first serve percentage, scored a 6-2 2-6 7-5 win over eighth-seeded Emily Webley-Smith in a match that lasted for 2 hours and 5 minutes.

The Indian player took more chances that came her way, while the Briton was undone by the 12 double faults she committed.

Both fired three aces each but Emily managed to convert only five of the 14 break points that she earned, while Dhruthi converted 6 out of 12.
 

On the other court, 16th seed Zeel Desai played one of the longest matches of the day in shutting out No 2 seed from Britain, Samantha Murray, 7-5 2-6 6-4 in 2 hours and 10 minutes.

Zeel worked her way into the match with hard work from the baseline as her game was strewn with 14 double faults as compared to 9 from Samantha.

The Indian converted seven of the 12 break points she earned, while Samantha wasted 10 of the 17 break points that she secured.

The two joined six Indians in the main draw - including No 3 seed Ankita Raina and No 7 seed Karman Kaur Thandi - and four wild cards -- Riya Bhatia, Rutuja Bhosale, Mahak Jain and Pranjala Yadlapalli.

Results:

Qualifying (Final round): 1-Ana Veselinovic (Mne) bt 13-Sarah Beth Grey (Gbr) 7-5, 6-0; 3-Aliona Bolsova Zadoinov (Esp) bt 11-Fatma Al Nabhani (Oma) 6-3, 6-2; Ho Ching Wu (Hkg) bt 17-Ellen Allgurin (Swe) 6-3, 7-6 (7-5); 16-Zeel Desai (Ind) bt 2-Samantha Murray (Gbr) 7-5, 2-6, 6-4; 6-Kaja Juvan (Slo) bt Kaylah Mcphee (Aus) 7-5, 6-1; 5-Nagi Hanatani (Jpn) bt 15-Ksenia Palkina (Kgz) 6-1, 3-6, 6-4; Elena Bogdan (Rou) bt Haruna Arakawa (Jpn) 6-1, 6-1; wc-Dhruthi Tatachar Venugopal (Ind) bt 8-Emily Webley-Smith (Gbr) 6-2, 2-6, 7-5.

Main draw seedings:

1. Jia-Jing Lu (Chn), 2. Georgina Garcia-Perez (Esp), 3.Ankita Raina (Ind), 4. Katy Dunne (Gbr), 5. Ganna Poznikhirenko (Ukr), 6. Diana Marcinkevica (Lat), 7. Karman Kaur Thandi (Ind), 8. Mai Minokoshi (Jpn).