Rishika, Rutuja move ahead in ITF women's qualifiers

Rishika Sunkara scored an easy straight set win over Arthi Muniyan, while Pune’s Rutuja Bhosale had to make a rally from one set down to beat Vasanti Shinde to move into the second round of the qualifying tournament for the NECC-ITF women’s $25,000 tennis tournament here Saturday.

Eleventh seed Rishika won 6-1, 6-1, but now faces a tough task of competing against top seed Japanese Miki Miyamura, who was given a scare by Rashmi Teltumbde in the first round contest. Miki won 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 at the Deccan Gymkhana. A win in the second round of the tournament will earn them a spot in the main draw of the $25,000 tournament starting Monday. In the bottom half of the draw, 16th seed Rutuja lost the first set 3-6 against Vasanti. But Rutuja pulled things back to take the next two sets 6-2, 6-3 to move ahead.

Rutuja now meets a tricky opponent in Oksana Kalashnikova of Georgia. The fifth seeded Oksana, who played an exhibition match against leander Paes in the Premier Tennis league, defeated Arantxa Andrady 6-1, 6-3. In other matches, Bhuvana Kalva defeated Snehadevi S. Reddy 2-6, 6-3, 6-3 and the 14th seed Shweta Rana beat Aishwarya Agrawal 6-3, 7-5. Unseeded Diana Bogoliy of Ukraine shocked 13th seed Nidhi Chilumula of India 6-3, 4-6, 6-0 and Sai Samhitha Chamarthi caused an upset by beating 10th seed Kamonwan Buayam of Thailand 7-5, 6-3.