Seeds fail to sprout in ITF tournament

Top seed Katarina Daskovic of Yogoslavia was comprehensively beaten by Maja Mlakar of Slovenia as seeds had a tough day on the second day of the $10,000 ITF women's tennis tournament in Delhi on Tuesday.

Among the Indians, Archana Venkatraman showed the door to the winner of last leg at Gwalior, Sai Jayalakshmi, 4-1, 4-5, 4-0, 2-4, 4-1, while Rushmi Chakravorthi beat Radhika Tulpule 2-4, 5-3, 2-4, 4-1, 4-2. Third seed Manisha Malhotra beat Angela Cardosa (Portugal) 2-4, 2-4, 4-0, 5-3, 5-4.

Mlakar, who won the first round match 4-2, 4-1, 4-2 in just 55 minutes, was in the control of the proceedings right from the beginning. The two players held on to their serve till Daskovic was serving at 2-3. Mlakar stepped up the pace to break the top seed and close out the set at 4-2.

Unrelenting Mlakar then broke Daskovic in the second and the fifth game to go ahead two sets to love.

In the third set, Mlakar continued the good show as she broke Daskovic in the first game of the third set to barge into the second round.

The winner at Gwalior and seeded fifth here, Sai Jayalakshmi went down to Archana Venkatraman in a marathon match lasting two hours and five minutes. Archana won 4-1, 4-5, 4-0, 2-4, 4-1.

Jaylakshmi looked uncomfortable as Archana made her move around the court in the first set. Archana broke the fifth seed in the first and fifth games of the first set to wrap up it at 4-1.

The second set was more keenly contested and was decided via the tiebreaker. After trading breaks in the third and fourth games, both players held their serve to force the tiebreak. The girls were neck and neck, till Sai seemed to take charge and won 7-4 to level the match at one set each.

nd when Sai looked like her old self, Archana came up with some tactical changes and whitewashed the fifth seed 4-0 in the third set to go up two sets to one.

Again Sai, after exchanging breaks early in the set, regained her composure to win the fourth and force the decider. However, she ran out of staying power and was simply outclassed by Archana.

Long matches seemed to be the order of the day as Rushmi Chakravorthi beat Radhika Tulpule in a five setter lasting two hours and 48 minutes 2-4, 5-3, 2-4, 4-1, 4-2.

In the other five setters of the day, third seed Manisha alhotra beat Angela Cardosa of Portugal 2-4, 2-4, 4-0, 5-3, 5-4 in a gruelling two hours 40 minutes while seventh seed Van den Hurk of The Netherlands overcame stiff resistance from Shalini Thakur to win 4-1, 2-4, 4-1, 1-4, 4-0 in one hour 40 minutes.

In another match, slow starter Shruti Dhawan beat lucky loser Mojeh Mileta of Slovakia 5-4, 1-4, 4-0, 4-0 in an hour and 20 minutes while Ankita Bhambri beat Isha Lakhani 4-1, 5-4, 4-1 in a match of wild card entries.

Wild card Jyotsna Vashisht beat lucky loser Ridhima Parekh 4-0, 5-4, 4-0 in the last match of the day.