Riya Bhatia won an International Tennis Federation title after a gap of two years as she lifted the $25,000 ITF women’s tennis tournament in Lagos, Nigeria, on Monday.
This was the 22-year-old’s biggest career title, beating higher-ranked Nastja Kolar 7-5, 1-6, 6-3 in the final. In the semi-finals, she had beaten compatriot Rutuja Bhosale 6-4, 6-7(5), 5-7.
This was Bhatia’s third career ITF title. She had last won the $15K ITF event in Colombo in 2017 and the $10K event in Sharm El Sheikh in 2016.
On the ATP Tour, India No 1 Prajnesh Gunneswaran began with a win at the ATP Challenger in Liuzhou, China. The top seed at the event beat Nicolas Barrientos 6-2, 6-1 and will play WuTung-lin in the next round.
Sidharth Rawat, the other Indian in the singles draw, went down in the second round to 14th seed Zhe Lin 6-2, 6-3. He had earlier beaten Xin Gao 6-4, 6-4 in the opener.
In the doubles at Liuzhou, India’s Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan and partner Adil Shamasdin, the second seeds, were beaten in the first round by Matej and Ivan Sabanov 6-4, 6-3.
At the Traralgon Challenger in Australia, Sasi Kumar Mukund beat Germany’s Sebastian Fanselow 7-6, 6-3 in his opener. The 10th seed will take on 8th seed Alejandra Tabilo from Chile for a place in the quarter-finals.
Earlier on Sunday, Divij Sharan and partner Artem Sitak were beaten 6-3, 5-7, 10-7 by Santiago Gonzalez and Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi in the final qualifying round of the Basel Open.
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