Pari Singh beats Anjali Rathi to top group in Road to Wimbledon

It was not just the grass courts but a typical British weather, with rain and sunshine taking turns to tease the players, that provided a fitting climax to the league stage of the Road to Wimbledon girls under-14 tennis tournament at the Delhi Gymkhana Club here on Thursday.

Top seed Pari Singh handled the conditions, the wait for resumption of play, and a free-stroking Anjali Rathi quite competently to pull off a 4-6, 6-1, 7-5 victory that saw her top the group.

Anjali also made the cut, having won her earlier two matches in the group against Chandni Srinivasan and Nandini Dixit.

The other seeds in the top-4, Veda Raju Prapurna, Kundana Sri Bandaru and Suhitha Maruri also qualified for the knock-out with unbeaten record from their groups.

The Vemuri twins from Telangana, Apurva and Abhaya qualified from groups ‘B’ and ‘D’ with two wins each. 
Amishi Shukla pulled through from group ‘C’ by beating Lakshmi Gowda 6-4, 7-5, as she had earlier beaten the seeded player Suryanshi Tanwar in three sets.

In the quarterfinals, Pari will play Abhaya, Suhitha will challenge Anjali, Veda Raju will play Amishi, and Kundana will be up against Apurva.

The semifinals will also be played on Friday, and the top two from the tournament will make it to the UK under-14 championship in Wimbledon in August.

In the boys event in Chandigarh, which was forced on to the hard courts at the CLTA Stadium owing to persistent rain, Ayushmaan Arjeria, Navya Verma, Wyatt Rowan Obrien, Dhananjay Athreya, Mohith Reddy, Skandha Prasanna Rao, Agriya Yaav and Jasmeet Duhan made the quarterfinals.

The results (league):

Girls:
Group-A: Pari Singh bt Anjali Rathi 4-6, 6-1, 7-5; Nandini Dixit bt Chandni Srinivasan 6-3, 3-6, 6-1.

Group-B: Veda Raju Prapurna bt Chahana Budhbhatti 6-2, 6-3; Apurva Vemuri bt Sukhmanni Bhandari 6-4, 6-1.

Group-C: Kundana Sri Bandaru bt Suryanshi Tanwar 6-0, 6-1; Amishi Shukla bt Lakshmi Gowda 6-4, 7-5.

Group-D: Suhitha Maruri bt Abhaya Vemuri 6-3, 6-3; Prabha Arunkumar bt Sweta Samanta 6-4, 7-6(3).