Sharmada beats Rituparna to advance in AITA Women’s C’ship

Bengaluru, Feb 9 : Sharmada Balu of Karnataka sent home seventh seed Rituparna Nayak of Telangana in the first round of AITA Womens Championship at the PBI-CSE Tennis Academy, Padukone-Dravid Centre for Sports Excellence, here on Tuesday.
Sharmada (27) didn’t give a semblance of chance to her fancied rival as she attacked with a string serves and some good returns that saw her clinch the match 6-1, 6-0.
Meanwhile, top seed Humera Baharmus of Telangana sailed through her first match with an easy 6-1, 6-1 victory over Aneesha Sai Sree Kamma of Andhra Pradesh. In a minor upset, Telangana’s Apurva Vemuri ousted statemate and eighth seed Mubashira Anjum Shaikh 6-1, 6-3.
Results: Round of 32 Prathiba Prasad Narayan bt Sreenidhi Balaji 6-4, 6-1 Sharmada Balu bt 7-Rituparna Nayak 6-1, 6-0 Aryalee Chavan bt Harivarshine M 6-2, 6-3 Abhaya Vemuri bt Nagalakshmi Sarvani Chinthapalli 6-2, 6-1 Niharika Praveen Deshmukh bt Bhargavi V Olekar 2-6, 6-3, 7-5 Humera Baharmus bt Aneesha Sai Sree Kamma 6-1, 6-1 Apurva Vemuri bt 8-Mubashira Anjum Shaikh 6-1, 6-3 Apoorva SB bt Riti Agarwal 7-5, 7-6 –IANS rkm/arm