By IANS,
New Delhi : Rushmi Chakravarthi, exhausted after three energy-sapping rounds, lost rather tamely 3-6, 2-6, to Israel’s Keren Shlomo in the semi-final of the International Tennis Federation (ITF) tournament at the DLTA complex here Friday.
Shlomo’s opponent in the final is China’s Ying-ying Duan who beat compatriot Yi Zhong 6-1, 6-3 in the other semi-final.
Later in the day, Rushmi, however, avenged her singles defeat when she and her Chinese partner Chun-yan He beat Shlomo and Kristina Pejkovic 6-2, 6-1 to win the doubles title.
The sixth-seeded Indian, who was taken to three sets in all her three previous matches, was left with little strength Friday. She struggled with her serve and her movements on the court were sluggish. She tended to get rash and that led to a lot of unforced errors.
Rushmi, who had beaten fifth-seeded Shlomo comfortably in both her previous meetings, could not do much as the Israeli hit solid ground strokes.
Shlomo easily broke the Indian’s serve in the fifth and the ninth games to go a set up.
One expected Rushmi to fight back the way she did in the last couple of days, but she ran out of steam towards the end of the second set despite breaking the Israeli’s serve in the first game.
Rushmi, in fact, came close to going 3-0 up, but Shlomo managed to survive two break points. A dispirited Rushmi frittered away the advantage by dropping her serve in the next game. Another break in the sixth game and the Israelis was through.
“I had no energy left after yet another three-setter and a doubles match yesterday. My limbs just failed to move,” said Rushmi. With her defeat the Indian challenge in the first of the back-to-back tournaments came to an end.