Indian wild cards crash out in the first round

Bangalore, Feb 13 (UNI) Both the Indian wild card entrants -- Tara Iyer and Shikha Uberoi, crashed out in the first round of the USD 175,000 Sony Ericsson International WTA tennis tournament being played at KSLTA courts here today.

Earlier In a major upset of the day, Fifth seed Yuliana Fedak of Ukraine was shown door by qualifier Yurika Sema of Japan 2-1 in the first round.

Shikha, ranked 227, went down fighting against Shvedova Yaroslava of Russia at 3-6, 7-6 (6-3), 6-3, while Tara lost tamely to Dorminika Cibulkova of Slovakia 0-6, 2-6.

Shikha said that "match could have gone either way. I gave her lot of easy points and she took full advantage of my poor in serve and return".

In the first set, Shikha led 3-0 at one stage but paid dearly due to poor serving. Taking full advantage of erratic opponent Shvedova took the next six games in a row to wrap up the set 6-3 by bouncing back.

However, Shikha bounced back and took the second set to tie breaker and suceeded to winning it thanks to Shvedo's four double faults. In the third set again Shikha flopped again.

Dominika Cibulkova of Slovokia said that she was nervous in the beginning but regained her tempo and made her opponent to move much.

(Ed: pickup suitably) UNI