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TENNIS
The champion of the last tournament Sahaja Yamalapalli has been seeded seventh in the $40,000 ITF women’s tennis tournament to be played at the Ganesh Naik Sports Complex, Navi Mumbai from Tuesday.
The player whom Sahaja had beaten in the final in Solapur, Ekaterina Makarova has been seeded No.1, as some of the better ranked players withdrew.
The Asian Games mixed doubles gold medalist Rutuja Bhosale is the other Indian to be seeded, fifth behind Moyuka Uchijima, Justina Mikulskyte and Sapfo Sakellaridi.
While it is a strong field, and some of the leading Indian players like Ankita Raina and Karman Kaur Thandi are missing owing to their recent marriage, it should be some added motivation for the Indian players to be at their competitive best, as the event has not witnessed an Indian singles or doubles champion in ten editions so far.
Shrivalli Bhamidipaty had won the tournament in Bengaluru before Sahaja followed up last week in Solapur. The likes of Vaidehi Chaudhari and Zeel Desai are also capable as they have been showing in the circuit.
Lakshmi Prabha and Humera Baharmus did well to make the main draw through a tough qualifying event, featuring three rounds.
It should be interesting to see who rises to the challenge this week and breaks the voodoo.
Seedings
1. Ekaterina Makarova, 2. Moyuka Uchijima (Jpn), 3. Justina Mikulskyte (Ltu), 4. Sapfo Sakellaridi (Gre), 5. Rutuja Bhosale, 6. Diana Marcinkevica (Lat), 7. Sahaja Yamalapalli, 8. Ksenia Zaytseva.
– Kamesh Srinivasan
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