Ankita Raina, India’s top-ranked women’s singles player, produced one of her best wins as she stunned former US Open champion Samantha Stosur in the first round of the WTA $125K event in Anning China. The Indian beat the third seed 7-5, 2-6, 7-5 in a match that lasted two hours and 50 minutes on Wednesday.

It was an impressive match from the world No 180 who had lost to Stosur in straight sets in their last meeting. Raina, 26, who had finished as the runner up at the $60,000 ITF event in Istanbul 10 days back, held her nerve through the roller-coaster opener that saw both player struggle to hold serve. But the world No 77 Australian made more errors with 14 doubles faults compared to only three from her opponent. The Indian also won 45% of her break points compared to the Australian’s 38%.

Advertisement

The Indian is also through to the doubles quarter-final on the clay courts of Anning.

Read yesterday’s Indian tennis wrap here

On the ATP Challenger circuit, Sumit Nagal advanced to the third round of the Tallahassee Challenger after getting a walkover win over tenth seed Santiago Giraldo. The Indian was leading 6-2, 4-3 when his opponent retired.

At the Nanchang Challenger in China, Ramkumar Ramanathan was the last Indian left standing in the singles draw. The fourth seed beat Te Rigele 6-3, 6-2 to reach the third round. Vishnu Vardhan went down to Andrew Harris 2-6, 3-6 while N Srirm Balaji lost to 11th seed Go Soeda 4-6, 4-6. Meanwhile, Ramkumar and Vishnu lost their first-round doubles match 4-6, 5-7.

Advertisement

ITF results

At the $25,000 ITF event in Andijan in Uzbekistan, Pranjala Yadlapalli beat Susanne Celik 6-4, 7-6(2) in the first round of the women’s singles.

In the men’s singles, Rishab Agrawal beat Sanetulla Kutybaev 6-2, 6-0. Ibrokhimjon Urinnov beat Manish Sureshhkumar 1-6, 6-4, 7-5 while Tim Van Rijthoven beat Aryan Goveas 6-4, 7-6(4).

At the $25,000 ITF event in Abuja, Nigeria, Arjun Kadhe and Vijay Sundar Prashant beat Boris Butulija and Maxime Mora 4-6, 6-3, [10-6]. William Bushamuka and Luke Jacob Gamble beat Darryl Hale and Suraj Prabodh 6-4, 6-2 while Sadio Doumbia and Fabien Reboul beat Oleg Khorkov and Kunal Anand 6-3, 6-2.