By IANS,
Gurgaon : All eyes will be on veteran Rushmi Chakravarthi as she goes into the second $10,000 International Tennis Federation (ITF) tournament as favourite at the National Tennis Academy (NTA) courts, starting here Monday.
Rushmi, who won the first tournament Saturday beating Ankita Bhambri, is seeded second in the second consecutive tournament.
It was Rushmi’s second ITF tournament win, having won the Federal Bank ITF tournament on clay in Cochin, beating Georgia’s Magda Okruashvili 6-4, 7-5 last month.
Rushmi believes she is playing her best tennis at the moment. ” After the injury in Trivandrum ITF I took time off and worked on my fitness. I was aware of the conditions in Delhi, so I came fully prepared. I am playing good as of now and that keeps me going,” says the 30-year-old who will be playing Poojashree Venkatesh in the first round.
Top seed Isha Lakhani has pulled out and is headed to play in Turkey. Second seed Thai Nungnadda Wannasuk as well as Russian Elena Gasanova too are not present at the tournament in the second week and that has given Ankita the top billing for this tournament.
While Ankita lost to Rushmi in straight sets, her sister Sanaa could only make it to the quarterfinals.
Participation of Sandhya Nagaraj in the tournament will add depth to the competition.Sandhya, seeded fourth, had a semi-final appearance at a ITF tournament in Spain last month and is expected to give the top seeds a run for their money.
A better performance can also be expected from the Vietnamese qualifier Nguyen Thuy Dung, who stretched Rushmi to a third set in the semi-final last week.
The seedings: 1. Ankita Bhambri, 2. Rushmi Chakravarthi, 3. Sanaa Bhambri, 4 Sandhya Nagaraj, 5. Prerna Mythri, 6. Parul Goswami, 7.Sung-Hee Han (Korea), and 8. Parija Maloo.