In the clash between the top two Indian players, Karman Kaur Thandi emerged triumphant as she fought back from a set down to beat Ankita Raina and reach the final of the ITF $25K tournament in Pune. The all-Indian pair then went on to lift their second doubles title together as they beat Aleksandrina Naydenova and Tamara Zidansek 6-2, 6(5)-7,11-9 in a thrilling final.
The 20-year-old, ranked 219, beat the world No 213 and second seed 2-6, 6-2, 6-4 in the semi-final of BVG Pune Open played at the Shiv Chhatrapati sports complex in Balewadi. A few hours later, they were on the same side of the net as they won second title this month. Earlier in November, they had won the WTA $125K tournament in Taipei, which was the first WTA title for both.
In the singles final, the fourth seeded Thandi will take on Zidansek, the top seed from Slovenia.
The Indian duo had played each other once in the professional circuit before but Raina had won the match last year in Navi Mumbai.
This year, it was Thandi who ousted Raina in the semis with a gritty win. After going down in the first set, she came back to break her opponent four times and use her powerful serve to seal her win. She fired six aces through the match and won 76% of points on first serve.
It was quite a different match for Raina who has notched a 6-0, 6-0 win in the quarters against Zhang Kailin while Thandi took the scenic route to beat Valeriya Strakhova 7-6 (11-9) , 6-2.
Meanwhile, Pranjala Yadlapalli’s run at the Australian Open wildcards playoffs came to an end in the quarter-finals as the seventh seed went down to Chihiro Muramatsu 6-2, 7-5.