SPORTS

Rushmi-Junri exit in first round

September 19, 2005 21:54 IST

India's Rushmi Chakravarthy and her Japanese partner Junri Namigata fell by the wayside in the opening round of the doubles event at the US $1,70,000 WTA Sunfeast Open in Kolkata on Monday.

Chakravarthy and Namigata went down to the Hungarian-Ukrainian combination of Melinda Czink and Yulian Fedak 6-7(6-8), 4-6 at the Netaji Indoor stadium.

The Indo-Japanese pair matched their higher-ranked opponents in the first set, which rolled into the tie-breaker, where Czink and Fedak kept their cool during crucial points to clinch the set.

Czink and Fedak maintained their upper hand in the second set to move into the quarter-finals, where they will meet Chia Jung Chuang of Taipei and Rika Fujiwara of Japan, who upset third seeds Nicole Pratt and Tamarine Fujiwara 6-3, 6-2.

In another doubles match, Chin-wei Chan and Su-wei Hsieh of Taipei got the better of Spain's Arantxa Parra Santonja and Antonella Serra Zanetti of Italy, winning 6-7(5-7), 6-2, 6-3 to book a berth in the quarter-finals.

In the singles event, Puerto Rico's Vilamrie Castellvi scalped higher-ranked Emmaniuelle Gagliardi of Switzerland 6-4, 6-4 in a match that saw both players commit several unforced errors.

Castellvi, ranked 173, demolished her opponent's serve in the first game of the opening set, but the Swiss broke back in the next game.

Gargliardi, ranked 100, broke the Puerto Rican in the sixth game to go up 4-2, but Castellvi took the next four games on the trot to run away with the set.

The next set saw the two players holding serve in the first four games before Castelvi broke Gagliadi in the fifth to go up 3-2.

Castellvi retained serve in the next game to draw level at 3-3, before both players broke each other in the next three games.

Ahead 5-4, Castellvi served out the 10th game to polish off the match and move into the second round.

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