Bangalore: The four Indian wild card entries drew tough opponents in the USD 25,000 ITF Open women`s tennis championship which gets underway with main draw matches Monday at the KSLTA Stadium here.
Prerna Bhambri, ranked 670 and the highest-ranked Indian player in the field, runs into the top seed Tamaryn Hendler of Belgium, ranked 212 in the first round while the third seed Zuzana Luknarova of Slovakia is pitted against Kyra Shroff.
The two local girls, Sharmada Balu and Spurthi Shivalingaiah also face fancied opponents. Sharmada will go up against seventh seed, Han Sung Hee of Korea and Spurthi takes on fourth seed Koch Benvenuto of Chile.
Earlier, the draw ceremony was held at the KSLTA Stadium and noted Kannada Actress, Harshika Poonacha, athlete Pramila Aiyappa and Suresh Thimiri, CEO of the sponsor QNet, picked the lots for the draw. Sunil Yajaman, CEO of Zygo Sports, which is conducting the event, presided.
In the first round qualifying round, Rushmi Chakravarthi, Nidhi Chilumula and Rishika Sunkara won their respective matches and took a step closer to qualify for the main draw.
Nidhi defeated Ya Zhou of China 6-3, 6-4 while Rushmi Chakravarthi outplayed Varunya Chandrashekar, a teenager from Mysore 6-1, 6-0 while Rishika Sunkara crushed another Indian girl, Amla Amol Warrick 6-0, 6-0.
IANS
First Published: Saturday, March 17, 2012, 20:38