Ankita Raina, Ramkumar Ramanathan progress in Australian Open qualifying event

Ankita Raina capitalised on a good chance and outplayed the 229th ranked Myrtille Georges of France 6-2, 6-2 in the women’s first qualifying round of the Australian Open in Melbourne.

In the second round, Ankita was scheduled to face the 142nd ranked Paula Badosa Gibert of Spain.

The wiry Karman Kaur Thandi found 125th ranked Jennifer Brady of the US tough to tackle and managed to eke out five games in all in her first round encounter.

In the men’s qualifying first round, Ramkumar Ramanathan sailed past the 211th ranked Sergio Gutierrez-Ferrol of Spain 6-3, 6-2 to set up a second round against the 207th ranked Rudolf Molleker of Germany.

Prajnesh Gunneswaran was scheduled to play his first round match against the 228th ranked Viktor Galovic of Croatia on Wednesday.

The results:
Men (qualifying singles first round): Ramkumar Ramanathan bt Sergio Futierrez-Ferrol 6-3, 6-2.

Women (qualifying singles first round): Ankita Raina bt Myrtille Georges (FRA) 6-2, 6-2; Jennifer Brady (USA) bt Karman Kaur Thandi 6-0, 7-5.