Curovic and Josephine qualify for semifinals
Riya Bhatia of India negotiates a serve - Pic by M.D. Nissanka
Tamara Curovic of Serbia and Josephine Boualem of France prevailed in their quarter-final encounters of the Astoria Women’s Futures Tennis tournament played in the afternoon session at the SLTA tennis courts in Greenpath, Colombo to qualify to the semi-finals.
However fourth seeded Tamara underwent some anxious moments against her Indian opponent Jennifer Luikham after conceding the first before cruising through to a 2-1 victory.
In contrast Josephine the second seeded player and one of the contenders for the title had an easy passage against another Indian Nidhi Chiumula whom he demolished 2-0.
Meanwhile in the remaining two second round singles matches which was postponed for two days due to bad weather which was played in the morning session saw top seeded Riya Bhatia of India overcoming her compatriot Ramya Natarajan with a convincing 2-0 win while Rushri Wijesundara of USA got the better of India’s Dhruthi Tatachar Venugopal who retired midway during the second set was in progress.
The injury to Venugopal who was to partner Bhatua in the doubles quarter finals saw India being forced to hand a walk over to the pair of Isabelle Boulais (Canada)/YeXin Ma (China).
The two singles quarter-finals between Alice Gillan (Great Britain) and YeXin Ma (China) and Ria Bhatia (India) and Rushri Wijesundara (USA) was in progress.
The Astoria Women’s Futures is conducted by the Sri Lanka Tennis Association with the blessings of ITF. This is the first of the three tournaments, which will be played over the weekends at SLTA until October 21.
Results
Second Round Singles:
- Riya Bhatia (India) beat Ramya Natarajan (India) 2-0 (6/4, 6/2); Rushri Wijesundara (USA) beat Dhruthi Tatachar Venugopal (India) 2-0 (6/3, 2/1rtd).
Quarter-finals:
Singles:
- Tamara Curovic (Serbia) beat Jennifer Luikham (India) 2-1 (2/6, 6/4, 6/4); Josephine Boualem (France) beat Nidhi Chiumula (Inda) 2-0 (7/6(5), 6/1).
Doubles:
- Isabelle Boulais (Canada)/YeXin Ma (China) received walk over from Riya Bhatia/ Dhruthi Tatachar Venugopal (India).