Qualifying for NECC ITF

Ksenia gets top billing in Qualifying draw

Four Indians seeded; Sharmada Balu highest ranked Indian


Pune, December 16: Russia’s Ksenia Kirillova has been top seeded in the Qualifying draw of the 11th NECC-ITF $25,000 Women’s tennis tournament wherein all the seeds get first round bye for the event that begins at the Deccan Gymkhana courts on Saturday.


Kirillova meets India’s Sri Vaishnavi Peddi Reddy in the second round; while the second seded Hua-Chen Lee faces 12th seed Shu-Ying Hsieh after the draw was made on Friday evening.


Four Indians have been seeded in the qualifying with Sharmada Balu being placed at No 4, the best seeded Indian, while Kyra Shroff is seventh, Rushmi Chakravarthi eighth and Ankita Raina tenth. Both Kyra and Rushmi had a forgettable outing in the ongoing $10,000 ITF tennis at Balewadi.


Sharmada has a tough second round match against Ireland’s Julia Moriarty on the morrow, while Kyra waits for the winner of first round match between Prarthana Prathap and Ho-Ching Wu of Hong Kong.


Rushmi too will have to wait as she is drawn to play the winner of Sheethal Gautham and Preethi Srinivasan in the bottom half of the draw. Eight players will make it to the main draw after playing three rounds in a draw of 48.



Following the withdrawal of the top seed Alexandra Panova of Russia, Varatchaya Wongteanchai of Thailand would get the top billing in the main draw, which begins on Monday. It would have been Panova’s third appearance in Pune had she not pulled out. Upcoming teenager Sachie Ishizu from Japan will now head the bottom half of the draw being the No 2 seed.


Meanwhile, two city players Rutuja Bhosale, and Aishvarya Srivastava are among the four players granted wild cards for the main draw. The other two are Prerna Bhambri, Rishika Sunkara.



SEEDS

1-Ksenia Kirillova (Rus); 2-Hua-Chen Lee (Tpe); 3-Jia Xiang Lu (Chn); 4-Sharmada Balu (Ind); 5-Ju-Eun Kim (Kor); 6-Hae-Sung Kim (Kor); 7-Kyra Shroff (Ind); 8-Rushmi Chakravarthi (Ind); 9-Julia Parasyuk (Rus); 10-Ankita Raina (Ind); 11- Noel Scott (USA); 12-Shu-Ying Hsieh (Tpe); 13-Julia Moriarty (Irl); 14-Evgeniya Svintsova (Rus); 15-Napatsakorn Sankaew (Tha); 16-Anamika Bhargava (USA).