PUNE, May 12: All the top eight seeds in the women's singles sailed into the pre-quarterfinals with first-round wins as the main fare of the Chakan Oil Mills-sponsored Western India tennis tournament got under way at the Deccan Gymkhana here today.

Wild card entry Kasturi Bhatt put in a spirited display against her statemate and seventh seed Joy Rodriques, clinching the first set 6-2.

However, Rodriques then got into her groove to take the lead 3-2 holding her serve in the second set. Here Kasturi, going with sixth serve (40-30 up) had a good chance to level, but she played wide an easy lob from Joy. This mistake not only cost her the game, it broke her spirit too and thereafter she just went through the motions as Joy wrapped up the match. Joy won the second and third game 6-2, 6-1. Similar was the proceeding of the match between qualifier Jahnvi Sundarajan and her statemate and wild card Puja Deshmukh. Jahnvi, who defeated Sai Rajlaxmi in a three setter final-round qualifier earlier, went down tamely 2-6 in the first set. She won the second 6-4, but Puja came back to win the third by same score. Meanwhile, top-seed Rushmi Chakravarthy of Tamil Nadu and the second-seed Arati Poonappa of Karnataka started their campaign with impressive wins over Nehal Chopra and Ritu Sethi of Maharashtra respectively. Rushmi took just 30 minutes to whip out her unseeded rival Chopra in straight sets 6-2, 6-1, while Arati took a little more time in disposing off an error prone Ritu Sethi 7-5, 6-1.

The main draw of the men's singles will commence tomorrow.

RESULTS

Women's singles (first round): Puja Deshmukh (Mah) bt Jahnvi Sundarajan (Mah) 6-2, 4-6, 6-4; V Archana (Kar) bt M Vishnu Preetam (TN) 6-0, 6-1; Sumitra Rao (TN) bt Akshata Mahtre (Mah) 6-0, 6-0; Aparna Srinivasan (Mah) bt Neeth Deviah 6-0, 6-1; Rushmi Chakravarthi (TN) bt Nehal Chopra 6-2, 6-1; Arati Ponnappa (Kar) bt Ritu Sethi 7-5, 6-1; Hrushida Kamte (Mah) bt Priya Wal (Mah) 6-0, 6-2; P S Anitha (TN) bt A Shruthi 6-2, 6-0; Jutika Chokshi (Mah) bt Sai Rajlaxmi 6-1, 6-1; Joy Rodriques (Mah) bt Kasturi Bhatt (Mah) 2-6, 6-2, 6-1; V Arthi (Kar) bt Stutti Smit (Mah) 6-2, 6-1; Padma Preetham bt Sonia Fernandes 7-5, 6-1; Shubha Srinivasan bt Kunal Joshi 7-5, 6-4; K Janaki (Mah) bt Mabel Abraham (Mah) 6-2, 6-2

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.