Local star Pooja bows down to Archana

Ahmedabad, Oct 31 (UNI) Local favourite Pooja Patel crashed out of the ACTF-Gujarat NRE Coke ITF Women's Circuit 2006 after losing to 7th seed Archana Venkatraman here today.

Archana was too good for Pooja. In the first set, Pooja lost her serves in the first, third, fifth and seventh games while she managed to break Archana in the fourth.

The only resistance from Pooja came in the fifth game when, serving for the game, she saved four break points before succumbing.

In the second set, Pooja was broken in the second, sixth and eighth games and broke back in the seventh. In the fourth game, Pooja fought back from 0-40 to take the game. The match lasted 64 minutes.

Sonal Phadke, the sixth seed, became the first casualty of the tournament. She was ousted by Madura Ranganathan in a match which lasted 135 minutes. In the first set, Phadke lost her serves in the first, third and seventh games. The set lasted 31 minutes.

Sonal served one ace and one double fault while Madura served three double faults and one ace. In the second set, Sonal lost her serves in the second and sixth games while breaking Madura in the third, fifth and ninth games. Madura served six double faults while Sonal served three. This set lasted for 44 minutes. The decider was more evenly played with Madura breaking Sonal in the second, eighth and twelfth games while losing her serves in the third, ninth and eleventh games. Sonal served three aces and two double faults while Madura served one double fault. The decider lasted 57 minutes.

Top seed Rushmi Chakravarthi and second seed Meghha Vakaria reached the pre-quarter finals with facile wins over their opponents.

Third seed Sanaa Bhambri had a tough time beating qualifier from Kazaksthan, Ksenia Palkina 6-4, 7-6 (7-2). The match lasted for 112 minutes.

The first set saw a lot of breaks. Sanaa got broken in the fourth and eighth games. Ksenia got broken in the third, seventh and ninth games. Serving for the set at 5-4, Sanaa was 0-40 down from where she rallied to take the next five points and take the set at 6-4. She served one ace and two double faults. Ksenia served one ace and three double faults. The second set saw Ksenia being broken in the very first game but she broke back in the fourth only to lose the fifth.

In the tenth game, Sanaa, serving for the set at 5-4, was 0-40 down in a replay of the first set. From there, she fought back to take the score to deuce, saved two more break points and squandered a match point to lose the game and level the score at 5-5. In the twelfth game, serving at 5-6 she squandered a 40-0 lead before wresting the game from Palkina and taking the set into tie break. In the tie break, Palkina seemed to have lost nerve and lost the set at 6-7 (2-7). Sanaa served three double faults while Palkina served two aces and one double fault.

Results of first round matches: Rushmi Chakravarthi (1) (413) beat Liza Pereira (995) 6-1,6-2; Prerna Mythri Appineni (929) beat Sanjana Kapur (Q) 6-3,6-3; Archana Venkatraman (7)(797) beat Pooja Patel (Q) 6-1.6-2; Parul Goswami (4)(672) beat Chirashanthi Rajur (Q) 6-2,6-3; Madura Ranganathan (1181) beat Sonal Phadke (6)(750) 6-1, 4-6, 7-6 (7-4); Tara Iyer (5)(749) beat Vishika Chhetri (1394) 6-2,6-4; Sanaa Bhambri (3)(635) beat Ksenia Palkina (Kgz)(Q)(621) 6-4,7-6(7-2); Meghha Vakaria (2)(582) beat Varsha Shivshankar (WC)(1394) 6-0, 6-1.

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