$25,000 ITF women’s tennis: Bhamidipaty beats Mikulskyte in quarters

Shrivalli Bhamidipaty blasted her way past the fifth seed Justina Mikulskyte of Lithuania 6-0, 6-0 in 49 minutes in the quarterfinals of the $25,000 ITF women’s tennis tournament at the Indore Tennis Club on Friday.

Quite at home on the quick courts where she had trained in past with coach Sajid Lodi, the 22-year-old Shrivalli smashed her way past Justina, who had won the title in Gurugram a fortnight earlier.

Shrivalli started hesitantly with two double faults in the first game but rarely put a foot wrong thereafter. She conceded only 19 points to the 28-year-old Justina, ranked 249 in the world.

In the semifinals, Shrivalli will play Polina Iatcenko, who pipped third seed Ankita Raina in a tough encounter. Ankita fought back from being down 3-5 and saved two match points before the Russian nosed ahead in the eventual tie-break for a 6-3, 7-6(4) victory. The other semifinal will be between Dalila Jakupovic and Mananchaya Sawangkaew, who were equally emphatic in thriving on the conditions. Shrivalli later made the doubles final with Vaidehi Chaudhari, beating the other Indian pair of Sahaja Yamalapalli and Zeel Desai in an entertaining contest.

The Indian pair will face Ya-Hsuan Lee and Sohyun Park, who recovered from a slow start to outplay second seeds Jacqueline Cabaj Awad and Diana Marcinkevica 10-1 in the super tie-break.