Hyderabad: Hyderabad girl Y. Sai Dedeepya entered the women’s doubles finals of the Fenesta Open National Tennis championship being played at RK Khanna Stadium in Delhi.
Dedeepya partnered Sara Yadav of Madhya Pradesh to defeat Anusha Kondaveti of Andhra Pradesh and Dakshata Patel of Maharashtra 6-3, 3-6, 10-6.
In the finals, Dedeepya-Sara pair will be up against Sowjanya Bavisetty of Telangana and Rishika Sunkara of Delhi.
In the junior category, sixth seed Shrivalli Rashmikaa of Telangana beat top seeded Kashish Bhatia of Delhi 6-4, 6-3 to enter the singles semifinals.
Meanwhile in the women’s singles, top seed Sowjanya Baviseti stayed on course for the title. In the quarterfinals, she whipped Salsa Aher 6-2, 6-2. Prerna Bhambri turned in a strong performance against Shreya Tatavarthy and won 6-2, 7-5.
“I am really happy to pull through today’s quarterfinals, it was challenging in this weather and I am excited to play the semis tomorrow,” said Sowjanya.
However, women’s singles second seed Bhuvana Kalva was beaten by Jagmeet Kaur 6-4, 6-2. The third seed Vaidehi Chaudhari had an easy win against Sravya Shivani 6-1, 6-1.
Men’s top seed Nikki Poonacha outgunned Prajval Dev 6-4, 6-3 in the quarterfinals while second seed Aryan Goveas outlasted Suraj Prabodh 6-3, 6-7 (5/7), 6-3 to enter the semifinals.
“Today’s match was good. Tomorrow I am playing against the defending champion, Dalwinder, which will be interesting since he is an aggressive player,” said Nikki.
Mumbai’s Goveas was happy with the way he played. “We played a really long match today and I knew he was very strong. The conditions were very tough though, with the weather being so hot and humid. But I’m happy with the way I played, that I pulled through. I’m looking forward to a good match tomorrow.”
Kunal Anand the fourth seed beat Nitin Kumar Sinha in a tough match 6-3, 7-6(5). The past national champion Dalwinder Singh had a close call as he battled hard to beat Ishaque Eqbal 7-6(4), 7-5.
