Talented Indian youngster Sonal Phadke rallied magnificently, after dropping the first set 4-6, to score over unseeded Thai girl Chattida Thimjapo 4-6, 6-4, 6-4 on way to a place in the women's singles second round in the $10,000 ITF-Futures tennis tournament at the Cricket Club of India courts in Mumbai on Monday.
Among the seeded players seen in action on the opening day, second seed Rushmi Chakravarthi and third seed Sai Jayalakshmi (both from India) recorded straight wins to move into the second round.
Rushmi was too good for compatriot and wild card Samrita Sekar, winning 6-3, 6-2 in an hour and ten minutes while Sai Jayalakshmi needed an hour and six minutes to sideline unseeded Po-Kuen Lam of Hong Kong 6-4, 6-3.
Also moving into the second round were fourth seed Akgul Amanmuradova of Uzbekistan and sixth seed Megha Vakharia of India.
The Uzbeck took just one hour to subdue unseeded German Franziska Etzel 6-2, 6-3 while the Indian needed 25 minutes more to crush triot Ankita Bhambri 6-2, 7-5.
Fifth seeded Malaysian Chin-Bee Khoo was stretched completley before beating unseeded Chinese Yan-Hua Dong 6-3, 6-7, 7-5. The match lasted two hours 22 minutes.
Meanwhile, Isha Lakhani, Archana Venkatraman and Shruti Dhawan (all three from India), Englishwoman Natalle Neri and Russians Orawan Lamangthong and R Rozsivalova qualified for the main draw.
