Fedak, Anastassia upset; Sanaa, Shikha out

Kolkata, Sep 19 (UNI) A whiff of Italian arrogance was on display as Alberta Brianti rocketed into the second round with a power-packed 6-4, 6-2 win, and in the process, packed third seed Yulina Fedak out in a first round match of the Tier III Sunfeast Open here today.

Alberta Brianti, world No 127, whose only claim to fame so far was her win over Sania Mirza in Montreal last August, took exactly 78 minutes to display a game of power tennis to make complete mockery of WTA ratings as Fedak found herself on the odd side of the court.

For the Ukrainian, this was an encore of sorts. Last year, Russian wild card entrant Elena Likhovtseva had stopped her run with a straight set defeat in the first round.

In another match held simultaneously on Court I on Day II, Kudryavtseva upset eight seed Anastassia Rodionova in a three-setter 1-6, 6-3, 6-3 to set up a second round clash with Shikha Uberoi-slayer Hana Sromova.

Sromova, unseeded here, had an easy game. She merely kept the ball in play as a patchy Shikha who rose to sublime before plummeting into the depths , with a cocktail of sublimity and ridiculousness, got tied up in knots and presented the game to the Czeck 4-6, 3-6.

The Indian, who resides in New Jersey, didn't play badly, to her credit. Her groundstrokes were crisp, and she often tried to come up.

However, she lacked deep enough approach shots and made Sromova's task easier. The world No 132 whipped past winners with consummate ease.

With both players holding serves till 5-4 in the first set, it looked as if Shikha would take it to the tie-breaker. In the crucial tenth game, the world No 194 made a costly double fault that saw Sromova going up 6-4.

The loss of first set seemed to rob Shikha of confidence. She started throwing her racket around. The harder she tried to hit winners, the more she ended up with unforced errors. It took another break in the fourth game for Sromova to go up 3-1.

Thereafter the Czech, who turned pro in 1997, held her serves and nerve to shut out the match.

The other Indian in fray today, qualifier Sanaa Bhambri, was no match for the talented Angelique Widjaja of Indonesia. The former world No.55, who missed the entire 2005 season owing to left knee surgery, took no time in dismissing the younger of the two Bhambri sisters, Sanaa, 6-2, 6-3.

In other matches of the day, Olga Poutchkova of Russia blew away Spain's Arantxa Parra Santonja 6-1, 6-0 to set up a second round date with Widjaja.

In a battle of the qualifiers, Iroda Tulyaganova of Uzbekistan , the former world No 16, put Chinese Taipei's Chia-Jung Chuang in her place 6-4, 6-1.

UNI BA DH PM1807