Sharmada makes a solid comeback, ousts seventh seed at AITA Women’s C’ship

Sharmada Balu who is making a comeback to competitive tennis after nearly five years showed that she had not lost the touch which had fetched her South Asian Games honours apart from a berth in the Indian Fed Cup Team. Sharmada who had to go through the qualifying rounds, sent home seventh seed Rituparna Nayak of Telangana in the first round of the Rs 1-lakh AITA Women’s Championship being held at the PBI-CSE Tennis Academy, Padukone-Dravid Centre for Sports Excellence here on Tuesday.

The 27-year-old didn’t give a semblance of a chance to her fancied rival as she attacked with a string serve and some good returns that saw her clinch the match 6-1, 6-0.

Meanwhile, the top seed Humera Baharmus of Telangana sailed through her first match with an easy 6-1, 6-1 victory over Aneesha Sai Sree Kamma of Andhra Pradesh. In a minor upset, Telangana’s Apurva Vemuri ousted statemate and eighth seed Mubashira Anjum Shaikh 6-1, 6-3.

Results Round of 32 (Seedings in prefix and states in parenthesis)

4-Prathiba Prasad Narayan (KAR) bt Sreenidhi Balaji (KAR) 6-4, 6-1; Q-Sharmada Balu (KAR) bt 7-Rituparna Nayak (TS) 6-1, 6-0; Aryalee Chavan (MAH) bt Harivarshine M (TN) 6-2, 6-3; Abhaya Vemuri (TS) bt Nagalakshmi Sarvani Chinthapalli (AP) 6-2, 6-1; Niharika Praveen Deshmukh (KAR) bt Bhargavi V Olekar (KAR) 2-6, 6-3, 7-5; 1-Humera Baharmus (TS) bt Aneesha Sai Sree Kamma (AP) 6-1, 6-1; Apurva Vemuri (TS) bt 8-Mubashira Anjum Shaikh (TS) 6-1, 6-3; Apoorva SB (KAR) bt Riti Agarwal (KAR) 7-5, 7-6.