Tennis: Rutuja is given the top billing at ITF 15K in Bengaluru

Bengaluru, Nov 29, : .

Rutuja Bhoosale of India, who has made a successful comeback to professional tennis by winning the singles title at an ITF womens event in Egypt in 2020, has been given top billing for the USD15K KSLTA/ITF World Womens Tour Championship which starts here on TuesdayZeel Desai is a former Commonwealth Youth Games gold medalist and has four ITF doubles titles and one singles title.Sowjanya Bavietti, who was the runner up at the Nationals recently has been seeded as No.2.Pranjali Yadalapalli, Mihika Yadav round out the top five.Vaidehi Chaudhari (Denmark), So-Ra Lee(Korea), Sathwika Sama make up the rear half of the top eight seeds.

Three other foreign players are Elena Jamshidi, Shria Atturu (USA), Zlata Yankovskaya and So-Ra Lee (Korea).Meanwhile, Pratibha Narayanan, a local girl, brought cheers to the crowd after she reached the main rounds with a score of 6-7(3), 2/2, 10-6 victory over Aditi Are in Telangana.

She will be facing her countrymate Sai Dedeepya Yedulla during her first encounter.The 20-year old fought back from a slow start to gain momentum in the second half of the match.

She then dominated her opponent with an aggressive style of play and won the match.She struck the ball with a tremendous amount of energy, despite her calm approach.

Her defiant opponent, who hit her first ball of tournament -- she had received a walk-over her first-round -- compensated by cross-court moves and won the first set, which was decided via tie-break.The Bengalurean fought back to take the second set.She had a 4-1 lead over her opponent before she won the set.Aditi lost steam during the super tie-break and gave in to the sheer power displayed by her rival.The main draw was dominated by the fancied players from the qualifying rounds.

Shreya Tathavarthy, the top seed, beat Sonashe Bhatti 6-4, 7-6 (4), to set up a match against Rutuja.Results: Qualifiers (Rd 2, prefix denotes seeding): Adithi Are lost to Prathiba Narayan Prasad 6-7(3), 6-2, 10-6; 2-Sai Samitha bt 16-Pooja Ingale 6-4, 6-7(3), 10-4; Renne Singla bt 14-Bela Tamhankar 6-4, 6-2; 5-Prathyusha Rachapudi bt Yahsika Venu 7-6(1), 6-1; 1-Shreya Tatavarthy bt Sonashe Bhatnagar 6-4, 7-6(4); Laalitya Kalluri lost to Sai Dedeepya Yedulla 7-6(5), 5-7, 10-1; 7-Akanksha Dileep Nitture bt Kashish Bhatia 6-2, 6-7(3), 10-5; 8-Shrivalli Rashmikaa Bhamidipaty bt 15-Dakshata Girishkumar 6-0, 6-0.bs #Tennis #Rutuja #Bengaluru #Telangana.