Sanjana in semifinals of WTA Future Stars tennis

Sanjana Sirimalla topped her group on better game scores, after a three way tie with the Chinese and Japanese, and qualified for the semifinals in the under-16 section of the WTA Future Stars girls tennis tournament in Shenzhen, China, on Thursday.

Sanjana had beaten the Chinese Xichen Zhao and had lost to the Japanese Natsuki Yoshimoto. All the three players won five of their six matches in the league. The Japanese was eliminated as she had won one set less than the Chinese and Sanjana.

The Indian girl prevailed on the basis of 49-22 games won and lost, as against 47-23 for the Chinese.

In the semifinals, Sanjana will play the second seed Annabelle Xu of Canada. The other semifinal will be between Reese Brantmeier of the US and Talia Gibson of Australia.

In fact, players from US, Australia and Canada made the semifinals of the under-14 event as well, along with Anja Nayar of Malaysia.

Pari Singh finished fourth in the under-14 event from the group in which the Malaysian topped and bagged the semifinal berth. Pari had lost her match against he Malaysian 7-10 in the super tie-beak.

On the last day of the league stage, Sanjana was quite fluent in beating the players from Vietnam and Laos, dropping one game to each.

Pari Singh won a tough match against the sixth seeded Taipei girl Fang An Lin 10-3 in the super tie-break, and beat a player from Vietnam for the loss of three games. The Vietnamese finished third in the group, on better set scores. Pari had own four of her six league matches.

The results (league):

Under-16 girls: Sanjana Sirimalla bt Thi Nguyen Tong (VIE) 4-1, 4-0; Sanjana Sirimalla bt Malaylack Deliah Pathummakuronen (LAO) 4-0, 4-1.

Under-14 girls: Pari Singh bt Fang An LIn (TPE) 5-3, 4-5(4), [10-3]; Pari Singh bt Thi Mai Linh Nguyen (VIE) 4-2, 4-1.