ITF Tennis: Balu shocks Anja in quarter finals

Promising Indian player Sharmada Balu of the fifth seed caused a flutter in the ITF Women’s Futures tennis tournament when she quelled aside the challenge of top seed Anja Prislan of Slovenia in the singles quarter-finals and won the match by 6-4,6-3.

However,in the second upset which took place in the quarter-finals,Stephanie Scimone of Italy defeated former India no. 4 Sheetal Gautam who was eighth seed in the tournament by 6-3,6-7(4),6-2 to reach the semis. In two other quarter-final matches played during the day,fourth seed Celine Cattaneo of France who is the winner of the Delhi leg of the tournament beat seventh seed Kyra Shroff of India by 6-2,6-1 while Yvonne Neuwirth of Austria outplayed Kaori Aoyama of Japan by 3-6,6-1,6-0.

In the doubles event,the Indian pair of Aishwarya Agrawal and Ankita Raina upset Moe Kawatoko and Maya Wakui of Japan by 6-0,3-6,10-5 in the first semi-final. In the second semi-final,Anja Prislan of Slovenia and Kyra Shroff of India upset Rushmi Chakravarthi of India and Chun-yan He of China by 7-6 [1,6-4.

On Friday,the doubles final will be held from 10.30 am which will be followed the singles semi-finals. Stephanie Scimone of Italy will face Yvonne Neuwirth of Austria in the first women’s singles semi-final while Sharmada Balu of India will play against Celine Cattaneo of France in the second semi-final.