Australian Open 2019 | Ramkumar Ramanathan, Ankita Raina make promising start

01/08/2019

India’s Ramkumar Ramanathan and Ankita Raina made successful starts to their respective qualifying campaigns for this year’s Australian Open competition with convincing wins. Meanwhile, women’s singles player Karman Kaur Thandi bowed out with a 0-6, 5-7 loss to 16th seed Jennifer Brady.

Indian tennis pros Ramkumar Ramanathan and Ankita Raina made promising starts to their qualifying campaigns for the upcoming Australian Open. Ramkumar, who was seeded 21st, knocked out Spain’s Sergio Guiterrez-Ferrol 6-3, 6-2 in his men’s singles opening round.

“It was a very close match. We played a very long game at 2-2 on my serve, I held. He also held his own but after the new balls came in I broke him. I served well and that helped. At big moments also, my serves came out well,” Ramkumar told PTI.

Meanwhile, fellow men’s singles player Prajnesh Gunneswaran will begin his campaign against Croatia’s Viktor Galovic on Wednesday. Amongst the women, Raina defeated France’s Myrtille Georges 6-2 6-2 in the opening qualifier.

“I have been working on my serve for the last six months and today I got some dividends from it. My first serve percentage was high and got me many points but most satisfying was winning points on my second serve. Usually that used to be low. Also, today, I hit a lot of winners but should control the number of unforced errors,” Raina told PTI.

The Indian ace will next go up against 140th ranked Spanish athlete - Paula Badosa Gibert. Meanwhile, competing in her maiden Grand Slam, Karman looked hesitant in the start but in the second set put up a good fight against world number 115 and 16th seed Jennifer Brady. However, she ended up losing the game in straight sets by a scoreline of 0-6, 5-7.

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Australian Open 2019 | Ramkumar Ramanathan, Ankita Raina make promising start

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