India had a mixed day with Shikha Uberoi making it to the second round while qualifier Ankita Bhambri was knocked out in the USD 1,70,000 WTA Sunfeast Open tennis tournament in Kolkata on Monday.
Shikha carved out a fluent 6-1, 6-3 victory over Ryoko Fuda of Japan, but Ankita went down 6-7(3-7), 3-6 to Estonian Kaya Kanepi in the opening round singles matches at the Netaji Indoor stadium.
Florida-based Shikha, ranked 152 in the WTA listing, ran away with the opening set by breaking her opponent in the third, fifth and seventh games before a sparse crowd, but faced a stiff resistance from her practice partner in the second set.
Shikha suddenly looked tentative and committed a double fault to drop serve in the opening game, but clawed back by demolishing Fuda in the sixth game to restore parity.
Shikha, the elder of the talented Uberoi siblings, seized control as Fuda lapsed into a series of unforced errors to lose the next three games to concede the set and the match.
Earlier, India's Rushmi Chakravarthy and her Japanese partner Junri Namigata bowed out in the opening round of the doubles competition going down to the Hungarian-Ukrainian combination of Melinda Czink and Yulian Fedak in straight sets 6-7(6-8), 4-6.
The Indo-Japanese pair gave a tough fight to their higher ranked opponents in the first set which rolled into the tie-breaker. But Czink and Fedak kept their cool during crucial points to take the tie-break.
Czink and Fedak took the next set 6-4 to move into the quarter-finals where they would meet Chia Jung Chuang of Taipei and Rika Fujiwara of Japan, who caused an upset by showing the door to the third seeded pair of Nicole Pratt and Tamarine Fujiwara 6-3, 6-2.
There was an upset of sorts in the singles with Puerto Rico's Vilamrie Castellvi scalping the higher ranked Emmaniuelle Gagliardi of Switzerland in straight sets 6-4, 6-4.
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 6-7 (5-7), 6-2, 6-3 to book a berth in the last eight.
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