There is a clear change sweeping through Indian women's tennis and the first seasoned player to succumb to this was Rushmi Chakravarthi, who went down to 19-year old Samrita Sekar in the first round of the $10,000 ITF Futures tournament in Delhi on Tuesday.
Samrita may not be at the forefront of a new group of players who are ready to take charge at the helm, but her 6-2, 2-6, 6-4 victory over the former Fed Cup player was the story of the day at the DLTA Complex.
Rushmi hardly looked the player who only two months ago won a similar tournament at Muzaffarnagar. An injury to her serving wrist worsened matters as she struggled with her own game for most part of the hour and 23-minute battle.
To her credit, the 26-year old Rushmi had a better game than her younger opponent and that she could stretch the match to three sets was result of her perseverence.
Samrita, for her part, played the typical game of an honest trier. She lacked the supeior fitness of the likes of Megha Vakharias and Isha Lakhanis but showed the discipline in keeping the ball in play when things did not go her way.
The Chennai teenager took the first set, breaking Rushmi in the fifth and seventh games but was later bogged down for a while in the second set which saw her save two break-points before conceding the third in the fourth game.
It looked as though Samrita would succumb to that familiar ploy seasoned players employ as Rushmi started to slice on the backhand heavily.
But Samrita was smart enough to quickly learn from her mistakes and began to concentrate on putting the ball back on her opponent's court.
That hard work paid dividends as Rushmi began to err in the decider in which the fourth game once again proved to be a turning point. Averting a break point in that game helped boost Samrita's confidence levels and she romped home from there on.
While Rushmi was going down, another regular on the circuit and her doubles partner, 26-year old Sai Jayalakshmi, was fighting hard to keep the flag of the old guard flying high. She did so eventually, huffing and puffing to a 3-6, 6-4, 7-6 (10/8) victory against Sheetal Goutham after two hours and 25 minutes in a true battle of attrition.
Sai, like Rushmi, was nursing an injury -- a bone spur on the right heel -- but she mustered enough strength to beat the affliction and her opponent's wily game to move into the second round.
Sheetal was upto her trademark game of changing the pace, keeping the ball short and working the angles but Sai had seen it all. After losing the first set, she got into her groove in the second and began playing her shots. Whether it was the over-the-head smashes -- something that has become a rarity these days -- or the quick approach to the net and the delectable volley, Sai did all that to a nicety.
But as the match wore on both the players began to suffer from poor fitness and struggled to hold serve. It did not make for good watching as serves of sitting-ducks were not put away and break points were surrendered easily. Fnally a double fault from Sheetal put an end to both the players' agony.
Second seed Chin-Bee Khoo of Malaysia defeated Asha Nandakumar 6-4, 6-0 but the qualifier made much more a contest of it than the scoreline might suggest.
Asha had the strokes to keep the 366-ranked Malaysian at bay for a while but her 15 double faults proved costly. Three of them came in the eighth game of the first set but she did well to hold serve despite facing five break-points.
That game however might have had an influence on the end result as Asha then started lose her sharpness after that and Chin-Bee was on a cruise mode in the second set.
Sonal Phadke, the seventh seed, had a good day's work out in her 6-3, 6-3 defeat of Geeta Manohar.
Other results (Indian unless specified):
Singles (1st round): Iciri Rai bt Nandini Perumal 6-3, 6-4; Natalia Neri (GBR) bt Punam Reddy 6-1, 6-4; Po Kuen Lam (HKG) bt Yamini Thukkaiandi 6-0, 7-5; Lata Assudani bt Sandra Sashidharan 7-5, 6-1.
Doubles (1st round): Chin-Bee Khoo (Mal) & Megha Vakharia bt Ankita Bhambri & Isha Lakhani 6-4, 6-2; Iciri Rai & Preeti Rao bt Vishika Chhetri & Marutha Devi 6-3, 6-4; Shruti Dhawan & Sheethal Goutham bt Chirashanthi Rajur & Anupama Rajur 6-2, 6-3; Archana Venkataraman & Arthi Venkataraman bt Shweta Kakandi & Sandri Gangotri 6-1, 6-1; Krushmi Chheda & Punam Reddy bt Sandra Sashidharan & Ragini Vimal 6-3, 6-2.
