Indian women's tennis was back to square one today as two seeded players were ousted in the quarter-finals of the $10,000 ITF Futures tournament at the DLTA Complex in Delhi on Thursday.
After the high of capturing titles in similar events last month and a good showing in previous rounds this week, Isha Lakhani and Sonal Phadke proved they are yet not there as they lost to the top two seeds Suchanan Viratprasert and Chin-Bee Khoo respectively in straight sets.
Thailand's Viratprasert broke fifth seed Lakhani's resistance in the first set and then raced to a 6-4, 6-1 victory while Chin-Bee of Malaysia encountered no challenge at all in her 6-3, 6-2 defeat of seventh seed Phadke in an hour and seven minutes.
In the other all-Indian clashes, fourth seed Megha Vakharia exorcised a few demons in her as she overcame a 0-4 deficit in the second set to seal a 6-1, 6-4 victory against Archana Venkataraman.
Against such a backdrop, there came a refreshing win by Samrita Sekar, who ousted sixth seed Sai Jayalakshmi 7-6 (7/4), 6-4 to book a semi-final berth.
The victory is Sekar's best performance so far. She had reached the quarter-finals in Colombo two weeks ago.
If form were to go by seedings, it would be a Thai-Malay final between Suchanan and Chin-Bee, who play Sekar and Vakharia in the last-four respectively -- but the Indians would be betting on the 19-year old Vakharia to pull off a "Khoo".
