Three cheers for Akanksha

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: Akanksha Nitture, who played the biggest match of her ITF career, has defeated an experienced rival and eighth seed Sathwika Sama to reach the quarterfinals of the US$ 15K KSLTA ITF World Tennis Tour Women’s Championship at the KSLTA here on Thursday.

The 18-year-old who went through two tough qualifying rounds before making it to the main draw, registered a 6-4, 2-6, 6-2 victory in a match that lasted a little more than two hours.In a power-packed match, Akanksha started off shakily losing her serve with two double faults and Sama took advantage in the next and fired an ace as well in the next game to go 2-0 up. However, Akanksha returned the favour winning the next two games and the pattern followed for the rest of the game.

The other seeds remaining in the fray crossed the last 16 hurdles without much ado with top seed Rutuja Bhosale quelling the challenge of wild card entrant Reshma Murari in straight sets 6-3, 6-3 while third seed Sowjanya Bavisetty outplayed Soha Sadiq 6-2, 6-2. Pranjala Yadapalli, seeded fourth brushed past another wild card Yubarani Banerjee 6-3, 6-3 to make it to the last-eight stage along with sixth seed Vaidehi Chaudhari who beat another qualifier Sai Samhitha Chamarthi 6-3, 6-2.