Smriti shock for fancied Delaunay; top seed Shrivalli tested

Mysuru, Oct 8 (PTI) Unheralded Smriti Bhasin of India got the USD 15,000 ITF Women's World Tour event off to a rocking start with a stunning win over fifth-seeded Carolann Delaunay of New Caledonia in the first round here on Tuesday.

The 21-year-old southpaw from Hyderabad struggled early on, but once she found the rhythm and range, there was no stopping Smriti, who eventually scored a 4-6, 6-0, 6-2 victory.

A little later, on a hot and humid day, top-seeded Shrivalli Rashmikaa Bhamidipaty of India survived mid-match blues to overcome a fighting Sonal Patil 7-5, 6-1 in her opener.

Smriti, 21, whose season early on was hit by a knee injury, was tentative to start with, struggling to get first serves in. To make matters worse, she committed far too many errors to give Delaunay an easy ride.

The loss of the first set seemed to jolt Smriti out of her slumber. Once she began to slow down the pace of play and got her first serve percentage up, the Indian started to call the shots and pocketed the second set without dropping a game.

Smriti didn't take the foot off the pedal in the decider and ran away a comfortable winner.

Shrivalli too looked comfortable early on as she ran a quick 3-0 lead with a break in the second game. For some strange reason, the top seed struggled to get her booming serves in and made too many unforced errors while trying to finish off the points quickly.

Sonal wasn't complaining as she mounted a brilliant charge, matching her rival, ranked almost 900 places above her, shot for shot.

In no time, she was dictating the course of the match by breaking back in the fifth and seventh games. But before much damage could be done, Shrivalli held to love in the ninth game and broke Sonal in the 10th and 12 games to take the tough first set 7-5.

The heavy-hitting top seed looked a different player altogether in the second set, reeling off winners at will to race to victory.

National champions Soha Sadiq and Akanksha Nitture breezed past Karnataka's wildcard pair of Kashvi Sunil and Arzan Khorakiwala 6-0, 6-1 in the first round of doubles action.

Barring a brief resistance early in the second set, the fourth seeds were largely untroubled. PTI AH AH TAP