Rushmi Chakravarthi repaid the faith reposed in her with a clinical win over Kazakhstan's Ektarinia Morozova to lead India to their second successive win in the Fed Cup Asia-Oceania zone Group 1 women's tennis competition in New Delhi on Thursday.
Twenty-seven year old Rushmi, playing instead of the upcoming but off colour Ankita Bhambri, justified her selection with a 6-0, 6-1 defeat of Morozova in a pool A match at the R K Khanna stadium.
Shikha Uberoi, the Florida resident playing under the tricolour, overcame minor hiccups in the second set before coming through 6-0, 6-4 against Mariya Kovaleva to give the Indians an unbeatable 2-0 lead.
Ankita, coming back from an injury, had looked patchy against Singapore yesterday, forcing captain Enrico Piperno a rethink.
Rushmi then rose up to the occasion with her second ever singles win in Fed Cup, and her first after the earlier win on debut in a Group 1 tie against Syria in 1994.
Rushmi, on a roll recently that saw her reach her maiden USD 25,000 event final in Mumbai last week, needed only 36 minutes to wrap up the match with a series of accurate serves and efficient forehands.
The 374th-ranked Indian reeled of nine games in a row before Morozova held her serve to register her first game on the board.
Rushmi then nipped any hopes her rival might have nurtured of a fightback by breaking her once more to close the issue.
Shikha, after taking the first set in just 18 minutes, committed three doubles faults to drop serve in the sixth game of the second set against Kovaleva.
The 21-year-old, however, brokeback immediately and levelled the scores 4-4.
The Kazakh girl then played a couple of fluent backhand down the line winners as if to show that the Central Asian nation had not only oil but tennis potential to be tapped.
But Shikha, with the big tie against top seed China coming up tomorrow, was in no mood to spend her energy. She uncorked another break in the ninth before serving out the match.
In the doubles, which was of mere academic interest, Shikha paired up with Ankita to beat Kovaleva and Morozova 6-4 6-4 and complete the whitewash.
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