The Sports-India Community

Ankita Raina is in the main draw, and Karman Kaur Thandi is playing in the qualifiers of the WTA tournament in Nanchang (the capital of China's Jiangxi province) starting July 23rd, with qualifying starting tomorrow (21st July).

Hopefully Prarthana will play doubles there as well -- and Ankita too could consider playing doubles.

Karman is the second seed in qualifying draw.

[Q1] (2) Karman Kaur Thandi (IND,216) vs. Nika Kukharchuk (RUS,387)

Karman had beaten the Russian girl in straight sets 2 weeks back in Naiman,China. Hope she repeats that here.

Any one has a link to watch Karman's match?
She won the first set 6-3

Kamran wins over Kukharchuk 6-3, 6-1

Nice and easy win over a Russian ranked 387. She next (likely) plays a Russian ranked 288 in the FQR.

Ankita is in the main-draw, but having a tough match against former top-50 Chinese player, Qiang Wang.

Karman started with a confident win over lower ranked Russian player ... In the final qualifying, she is facing former top-100 Russian player, Valeria Savinykh.

At $250K Jiangxi Open 2018, GNanchang, China

[Q1] (2) Karman Kaur Thandi (IND,216) bt Nika Kukharchuk (RUS,387) 63 61

[Q2] (2) Karman Kaur Thandi (IND,216) vs (8) Valeria Savinykh (RUS,288)

[R1] Ankita Raina (IND,194) vs (2) Qiang Wang (CHN,80)

In the doubles, our three players r playing with different partners ... Prarthana is the third seeds with American Jacqueline Cako and they r playing against local wild-card pair ... Karman is playing with Sabina Sharipova and they r also playing Chinese pair ... Ankita is partnering Chinese Jia-Jing Lu and they r facing Japanese pair.

At $250K Jiangxi Open 2018, GNanchang, China

[R1] (3) Jacqueline Cako (USA)/ Prarthana Thombare (IND) vs (WC) Xuliu Sun (CHN)/ Wushuang Zheng (CHN)
[R1] Sabina Sharipova (UZB)/ Karman Kaur Thandi (IND) vs Xinyu Jiang (CHN)/ Qianhui Tang (CHN)
[R1] Jia-Jing Lu (CHN)/ Ankita Raina (IND) vs Momoko Kobori (JPN)/ Ayano Shimizu (JPN)

Karman won the first set comfortably against Valeria Savinykh, 6-2 ... Karman had a field day on her serve as she lost only 1 point in the first set ... She won 9/10 points on the first serve and 7/7 points on the second serve.

Karman qualifies for the main draw with a comfortable straight sets win against former top-100 Russian player, Valeria Savinykh ... She won the second set with a single break ... In this match despite only 50% first serve percentage she didn't face a single break point.

At $250K Jiangxi Open 2018, GNanchang, China

[Q2] (2) Karman Kaur Thandi (IND,216) bt (8) Valeria Savinykh (RUS,288) 62 63

Karman through to the main draw

Dominating win over former top 100 player. 91% points won on 1st serve. Did not face a single break point.

So finally after a long long time, we will have two Indian players at the main draw of a WTA International event.
I think last it must have been in those WTA touneys we used to have in Bangalore and Kolkata.

Hope Karman avoids Margarita Gasparyan in the main draw, all the other matches are kind of winnable given her current form.

In the main draw, Karman has a decent draw, she is facing Chinese girl Jia-Jing Lu.

[R1] (Q) Karman Kaur Thandi (IND,216) vs Jia-Jing Lu (CHN,175)

Winnable match for Karman and how exciting to have 2 Indians in the singles main draw of a WTA tournament outside India.

KKT has 1-0 H2H as she had beaten Jing-Lu in the finals for her maiden ITF title.

With two Indians each featured in the main draws of ATP and WTA Tour level events, on opposite sides of the globe, the bar has definitely been set higher!

Great to see two Indians in a WTA event outside India for the first time ever (as far as I know). Whoa!