Bengaluru, Jan 13: Maharashtra’s Ingale Pooja stunned top seed Aarthi Muniyan of Tamil Nadu to march into the Women’s Singles quarterfinals of the Rs 2-lakh prize money AITA Men’s and Women’s tennis tournament hosted by the Rohan Bopanna The Sports School Tennis Academy under the aegis of the KSLTA. In a pre-quarterfinal tie played here on Wednesday, Pooja came back strongly after losing the first set to eventually win 3-6, 6-3, 6-2.
In another upset, Telangana’s Sanjana Sirimalla showed enough resilience to show fourth seed Chilakalapudi Sravya Shivani the door with a 5-7, 6-0, 6-4 victory.
In another interesting tie, Men’s top seed Nikki Poonacha of Andhra Pradesh who trains at RBTSSTA survived a scare before entering the last eight. Staring at an eminent defeat after being a set down (5-7) and a match point down in the second set against Tamil Nadu’s Mohit Mayur Jayaprakash, Poonacha fought back to claim the second and looked towards the road to recovery when his opponent withdrew due to cramps.
Local lad Suraj R Prabodh who is seeded third also registered a come-back victory against Bharath Nishok Kumaran 1-6, 6-3, 6-4.
Results (Pre-quarterfinals)
Mens singles
Dheeraj Kodancha Srinivasan (8) (TN) bt Raj Jitendra Bagdai (TS) 6-1, 6-2;
Yadav Yash (7) (MP) bt Ribhav Ravikiran (KAR) 6-2, 6-3;
Nikki K Poonacha (1) (AP) bt Mohit Mayur Jayaprakash (TN) 5-7, 7-6 (1) (Retd hurt)
Prajwal S D Dev (2) (KAR) bt Kavin Masilamani (TN) 6-2, 6-0;
Prithvi Sekhar (5) (TN) bt Manish G (KAR) 6-2, 6-0;
Chandrasekar Anirudh (6) (TS) bt Kamath Madhwin (GUJ) 5-7, 6-2, 7-5;
Suraj R Prabodh (3) (KAR) bt Bharath Nishok Kumaran (TN) 1-6, 6-3, 6-4;
Reddy Rishi (4) (KAR) bt Jadhav Gunjan Suresh (MP) 6-3, 6-2.
Womens Singles
Prathiba Prasad Narayan (5) (KAR) bt Sarvani N Lakshmi C (TN) 6-2, 6-4;
Samhitha Sai Chamarthi (2) (TN) bt Ishwari Anant Matere (MAH) 6-1, 6-3;
Ingale Pooja (MAH) bt Aarthi Muniyan (1) (TN) 3-6, 6-3, 6-2;
Nidhi Chilumula (6) (TS) bt Amodini Vijay Naik (KAR) 6-3, 6-0;
Sanjana Sirimalla (TS) bt Chilakalapudi Sravya Shivani (4) (TS) 5-7, 6-0, 6-4;
Reshma Maruri (8) (KAR) bt Sai Diya Balaji (TN) 6-1, 6-1;
Vanshita Pathania (7) (TN) bt Riti Agarwal (KAR) 6-2, 6-4;
Sadiq Soha (3) (KAR) bt Sonashe Bhatnagar (KAR) 6-4, 6-3
