India's challege ends with Sunitha loss in ITF womens challenger

Kolkata, Nov 19 (UNI) Noppawan Lertcheewakarn of Thailand moved into the quarter finals, beating top seed Melanie South of Great Britain 2-6, 6-3, 6-4, while the Indian challenge ended today with both Sunitha Rao and Sanaa Bhambri losing in the singles at the Gujarat NRE Coke ,000 ITF Women's Challenger here.

This year's junior Wimbledon finalist Lertcheewakarn came back from a set down to book herself into the last eight in about 100 minutes.

Fourth seeded Agnes Szatmari of Romania was shown the door by Australia's Sophie Ferguson 6-7 (5-7), 4-6 in 152 minutes.

Indian challenges came to an end with both Rao and Bhambri losing in the singles and others in the doubles.

Great Britain's Emily Webley-Smith took just 65 minutes to rout Indian hope, the fifth seed Sunitha Rao 6-2, 6-1.

Webley-Smith broke Sunitha in the third and seventh games to take the first set 6-2. In the fifth game Sunitha served four double faults but eventually managed to save the game. The second set lasted 21 minutes.

Sunitha started with two double faults in the very first game and was broken. She broke back in the second only to lose the third.

She was again broken in the fifth and seventh games.

Other Indian hope Wild Card Sanaa Bhambri survived the ordeal for 71 minutes before bowing out 3-6, 1-6 to second seed from Japan, Ayumi Morita.

Qualifier Bojana Jovanovski of Serbia marched into the quarters, defeating Chinese Taipei girl Chia-Jung Chuang 6-3, 6-3 in 65 minutes.

Seventh seed Ksenia Palkina of Kazhakstan defeated Israel's Julia Glushko 7-5, 7-5 in 105 minutes.

Eighth seed Kai-Chen Chang of Chinese Taipei did not break any sweat, defeating Thailand's Suchanun Viratprasert in 70 minutes 6-0, 6-2.

Elora Dabija of Romania defeated Leonie Mekel of Netherlands 2-6, 6-4, 6-4.

The Indian pair of Sunitha Rao and Shikha Uberoi went down fighting against top seed Chinese pair Jing-Jing Lu and Sheng-Nan Sun 4-6, 7-5, (5-10).

Fourth seeded Chinese Taipei pair of Kai-Chen Chang and I-Hsuan Hwang lost to Sophie Ferguson of Australia and Alexis Prousis of the USA 6-3, 6-7 (4-7), (4-10).

Second seeds Chinese Taipei's Chin-Wei Chan and Yi Chan defeated the Indian pair of Rushmi Chakravarthi and Isha Lakhani 6-4, 7-6 (7-3).

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