Unseeded Isha Lakhani stormed into the women's singles final with a convincing 6-3, 6-2 victory over Montinee Tangphong of Thailand in the $25,000 NSCI-ITF women's tennis tournament in Mumbai on Friday.
The diminutive Mumbai girl, who accounted for top seed Shiho Hisamatsu of Japan and seventh seed Sania Mirza of India in the earlier rounds, was a picture of confidence against her unseeded Thai opponent. She dominated the match, which lasted for an hour and seven minutes, after encountering some resistance in the third game of the first set where she dropped serve to the Thai.
However, she recovered her composure and broke back in the next game to lead 3-2 and again broke in the eighth game before serving out the set at 6-3.
The Indian ace served five double-faults in the first set, but tightened her serve in the second, in which she broke Tangphong in the first and third games to take a comfortable 3-0 lead. But just as she looked poised for an easy win, the Thai fought back and broke in the fourth game. However Isha broke again in the fifth game to go 4-1 up and then held serve at love. Though Tangpgong held serve in the seventh game, she could not stop the Indian from serving out the match at 6-2.
In the other semi-final, eighth seed Akgul Amanmuradova of Uzbekistan sidelined fourth seed Gabriala Navratilova of the Czech Republic 6-3, 6-4 in an hour and 15 minutes.
Amanmuradova was fitter and faster than her opponent and served hard and deep, making Navratilova work for every point. In fact, everything went smoothly for the Uzbek as she served as many as seven aces in the first set and five in the second and never gave her opponent a chance to recover.
Meanwhile, in the doubles semi-finals yesterday, the top two seeds sailed into the final with straight set victories.
Top seeded Czech pair of Navratilova and Hana Sromova needed a second set tie-break to beat fourth seeds Sania Mirza of India and Suchanan Viratprasert of Thailand 6-4, 7-6 (7-5) in one hour and 40 minutes while the second seeded Indian pair of Rushmi Chakravarthi and Sai Jayalakshmi sidelined third seeds Akgul Amanmuradova of Uzbekistan and Chin-Bee Khoo of Malaysia 7-5, 6-1 after an hour-and-a-half.
Results (all semi-finals):
Singles: Isha Lakhani (Ind) bt Montinee Tangphong (Tha) 6-3, 6-2, Akgul Amanmuradova (Uzb) bt Gabriala Navratilova (Cze) 6-3, 6-4.
Doubles: Gabriala Navratilova/ Hana Sromova (Cze) bt Sania Mirza (Ind)/ Suchanan Viratprasert (Tha) 6-4, 7-6(7-5); Rushmi Chakravarti/ Sai Jayalakshmi (Ind) bt Akgul Amanmuradova/ Chin-Bee Khoo (Mal) 7-5, 6-1.
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