Ankita Raina
Ankita Raina could not go past the second round at the French Open qualifiers, suffering a straight set defeat against Japan’s Kurumi Nara in Paris on Thursday.
Raina, India’s top singles player, lost the second round contest 3-6 2-6 in one hour and 21 minutes.
“It (match) was not bad. I had chances in my service game but she returned very well today. If I had converted those games, then it would have been different. Also there were windy conditions today,” Raina said after her match.
By Saurabh Singh | AITA
Indian tennis players are slowly getting back to professional tennis action at various tournaments being organised in Europe this week.
One of them is the leading women’s player Ankita Raina, ranked 166th on the WTA singles ranking, who won her maiden match after the COVID-19 outbreak halted global tennis in March.
Playing her second tournament after the unprecedented break, Raina beat Japan’s Kyoka Okamura in straight sets 7-5, 6-4 to enter round two of the ITF Women’s World Tennis Tour’s W25 Prague 2020.
Ankita Raina outplayed Eudice Chong of Hong Kong 6-4, 6-1 after a hesitant start to make the women’s semifinals of tennis in the Asian Games in Palembang on Wednesday.
In doing so, Ankita assured herself of a singles medal, only the second after Sania Mirza’s spectacular silver in the 2006 edition in Doha.
Ankita will challenge the top seed Shuai Zhang of China.
Ankita also made the mixed doubles quarterfinals with Rohan Bopanna. The duo will play Christopher Rungkat and Aldila Sutjiadi of Indonesia.
Ankita Raina went down fighting 6-7(4), 5-7 to the second seed Wang Yafan of China in the pre-quarterfinals of the $125,000 WTA tennis tournament in China on Wednesday.
The second round entry was worth 15 WTA points and $2000 for the 193rd ranked Ankita.
In the ATP Tour event in Turkey, Divij Sharan seeded second with Marcin matkowski of Poland made the doubles quarterfinals with a 7-5, 6-3 victory over Radu Albot and Nikoloz Basilashvili.
In another Challenger in Ostrava, Tomislav Brkic of Bosnia and Herzegovina beat the eighth seeded Sumit Nagal in three sets.
Ankita Raina had an impressive start as she beat Tang Qianhui of China 6-2, 6-1 in the first round of the $125,000 WTA tennis tournament in Anning, China, on Tuesday.
The 25-year-old Ankita will next challenge the second seed Wang Yafan of China who bounced back from the brink of defeat to beat Danielle Lao of the US 5-7, 7-6(6), 6-4.
