By IANS,
Gurgaon : Poojashree Venkatesha pulled off a shock victory over second seeded veteran Rushmi Chakravarthi in the first round of the $10,000 ITF tournament here Tuesday.
Rushmi, who won the first $10,000 ITF title here last Saturday, started as a favourite this week but went down to 17-year-old girl from Mysore 2-6, 7-5, 5-7.
Fourth-seeded Sandhya Nagaraj was another first round casualty losing to unseeded Shalini Sahoo 6-2, 5-7, 0-6
Fifth seed Prerana – Mythri Appineni too could not match up her quarter-finals showing last week going down 3-6, 1-6 to Australian qualifiers Renee Binnie.
All other top players made an easy foray into the second round. Top seed Ankita Bhambri pummelled wildcard Deepna Vazirani, 6-0, 6-1 while sister Sanaa Bhambri seeded third mowed down cousin Prerna 6-4, 6-2.
Sixth seed Parul Goswami also registered a comfortable win over qualifier Rishika Sunkara thrashing her 6-1, 6-2.