$60K ITF Women, Bursa and Artvin, Turkey

[PKBasu]

Very impressive play by Ankita this week on clay in Turkey. She had been in excellent form before the grass seaso too, and it is good to see her sustain her level.

[sameerph]

Yes, this was a very good effort against local top 200 player in SF.

Does Ankita have a chance of making the cut for us open qualies ??

The cut off tends to be around 230. In the live rankings, Amkita is 262. A title this week would have taken her inside that. Now, will need SF or better next week at $80K in Prague which looks almost impossible with Ankita having to come thru qualies and all the seeds likely to be top 150 players.

[jaydeep]

Ankita is facing local teenager in the first round ... Karman is facing former top-150 Ukrainian player, Anastasiya Vasylyeva.

At $60K ITF Women's Tournament 2017, Artvin, Turkey (hard court)

[R1] (6) Ankita Raina (IND,271) vs (WC) Basak Akbas (TUR,UNR)
[R1] Karman Kaur Thandi (IND,340) vs Anastasiya Vasylyeva (UKR,409)

[sameerph]

Karman lost to Vasylyeva in Indore futures final in December 2015 in the final in 3 sets. Hopefully, with her improvement, Karman will turn the tables this time.

Prarthana is playing doubles here too.

[R1] (WC) Cengiz/Thandi (TUR/IND) v Kapshay/Wachaczyk (UKR/GER)

[R1] (3) Thombare/Veselinovic (IND/MNE) v Potapova/Strakhova (RUS/UKR)

[R1] Ce/Raina (BRA/IND) v. Herdzelas/Mrdeza (BIH/CRO)

[bujilover]

With her current form, I have no doubt Karman defeating the Ukrainian who seemingly had a hard time winning on hard courts this year. Looking forward to a long week for all 3 of our players.

[Saniapower]

It will not be easy for Karman.
Karman's retun game's got issues. My observation is that she cant return in a effective way - weak return or moon balling or missing on easy one more often than not. This is danger.

[sameerph]

All 3 of our players started with doubles wins.

[R1] Berfu CENGIZ (TUR) / Karman Kaur THANDI (IND) 6-3 4-6 [10-5] Veronika KAPSHAY (UKR) / Julia WACHACZYK (GER)

[R1] Prarthana G. THOMBARE (IND) / Ana VESELINOVIC (MNE) [3] 6-4 4-6 [10-8] Anastasia POTAPOVA (RUS) / Valeriya STRAKHOVA (UKR)

[R1] Gabriela CE (BRA) / Ankita RAINA (IND) 7-5 6-4 Dea HERDZELAS (BIH) / Tereza MRDEZA (CRO)

Both Karman and Ankita play their R1 singles matches tomorrow.

[jaydeep]

Dominating winning start for Ankita against a local teenager ... Next, she is facing Croatian veteran Ana Vrljic.
At $60K ITF Women's Tournament 2017, Artvin, Turkey (hard court)

[R1] (6) Ankita Raina (IND,270) bt (WC) Basak Akbas (TUR,UNR) 62 61

[R2] (6) Ankita Raina (IND,270) vs Ana Vrljic (CRO,420)

[sameerph]

Karman wins the marathon first set 76(10) in 1 hour 20 mins. She should have won it in easier manner as she had 2 set points serving at 5-3, 40-15. But, she got broken back and then it went with serve. In the tie break, Karman was down 2-4 but came back and won the tie break.

[sameerph]

Karman loses the second set 3-6. Just 1 break of serve in the first service game of the set and that proved decisive. The matches goes into third set.

[PKBasu]

The match has been suspended at 1 set all.

[sameerph]

Match restarted and got interrupted again with Karman serving at 5-5 , deuce in the third set. The Russian served for the match at 5-4 but Karman broke her but is facing some threat on her own serve.

Very close match with Karman winning 1 more point than her opponent so far. To resume tomorrow.

[sameerph]

On resumption today, Karman could win only 1 more points and lost the match.

At $60K ITF Women's Tournament 2017, Artvin, Turkey (hard court)

[R1] Karman Kaur Thandi (IND,340) l. Anastasiya Vasylyeva (UKR,409) 76(10) 36 57

She put up a big fight but she should be winning these matches now.

[jaydeep]

Ankita struggled in this match ... After winning the first set Ankita was struggling to hold her serve ... In the last set, there was the fury of breaks but Ankita survived ... Next, Ankita is facing local favorite and similarly ranked Ayla Aksu.

At $60K ITF Women's Tournament 2017, Artvin, Turkey (hard court)

[R2] (6) Ankita Raina (IND,270) bt Ana Vrljic (CRO,420) 61 46 64

[QF] (6) Ankita Raina (IND,270) vs (4) Ayla Aksu (TUR,260)

[sameerph]

Still admirable that Ankita keeps winning matches and continues to go to at least QF/SF stage in these tough European tournaments. None of the other Indians do so.

Surprisingly singles quarter finals and than doubles quarter finals will also be played later today. It will be heavy duty work for Ankita today.