Asian Games tennis latest; Indian Women side crushes out of the team event
The women tennis team of India bundled out of the team event in the 2010 Asian Games in China after being drubbed 0-3 by Indonesia in the opening round on Saturday.
The thirty four year old Nirupama Sanjeev, who came out of retirement recently to compete for the Indian side in the Commonwealth Games, got a thrashing as the right hander was outlasted in two sets by Ayu Kade
Dwi Fani Damayanti in the opening rubber. The final match score was 1-6 1-6. The battle concluded in a time period of fifty six minutes in China.
Born in the Southern Indian town of Coimbatore, Nirupama started playing the game of tennis at five years of age. The professional tennis ace from India, who made her debut on the WTA World Tour at just eighteen,
was highly impressed by her cousins K.G. Ramesh and K.G.Suresh who were some of the best in India at that time.
Her first tennis competition foray was the National Under twelve championship, where Nirupama made her way into the semi final and went on to grab her maiden National crown in the under fourteen age group at
the age of thirteen. The following year, she picked up the National Women’s trophy at age fourteen.
Nirupama, for the last five years, has been on the expert commentary team along with Vijay Amritraj, a tennis legend from India, for ESPN-STAR sports. She was broken by her Indonesian foe on three occasions in
each set on Saturday to lose the battle in the end at Aoti Tennis Center.
The responsibility to bring the home side back in the tie was on young Poojashree Venkatesh, however she frittered away a flying start to loss a three setter clash versus Lavinia Tananta later in the day. The
final match score was 6-2 5-7 2-6.
After an easy first set victory, Venkatesh, who is currently ranked number 521 on the WTA tour, took a lead of 3-1 in the following set and could have gone for the kill, but the story changed drastically afterwards.
Venkatesh missed her serve during the fifth game and allowed her foe a comeback as she failed to handle her unforced errors.
Later, Rushmi Chakravarthi and Nirupama also lost the doubles rubber in straight sets with a score line of 3-6 1-6.
After receiving a first round bye, the India’s men’s side, seeded number four, will play its second round versus unseeded Qatar later in the evening.
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