City’s Sanjana Sirimalla goes down in Future Stars semifinal

HYDERABAD: Hyderabad tennis player Sanjana Sirimalla made a remarkable run to the semifinals before losing to second seed Anna Belle of Canada at the U-16 WTA Future Stars junior tennis event in Shenzhen, China.

Seeded 12th, Sanjana put up tough fight against Anna Belle before being silenced 6-2, 7-5.

Earlier in the quarterfinals, Sanjana defeated seed 4 and seed 5 of the tournament to strom through semifinals alongside participants from Canada, US and Australia.

Reese Brantmeier of US will face Annabelle Xu of Canada in the U-16 finals while, Clervie Ngounoue  of US is scheduled to face Kayla Cross from Canada in the U-14 finals.

The Results
U-16 semifinals: Annabelle Xu (Canada) bt Sanjana Sirimalla 6-2, 7-5; Reese Brantmeier (USA) bt Talia Gibson (Australia) 6-4, 6-3.

U-14 semifinals: Clervie Ngounoue (USA) bt Taylah Preston (Australia) 6-2, 2-6, 10-5; Kayla Cross (Canada) bt Anja Nayar (Malaysia) 6-1, 6-2.