Seeds have it easy

Seeds had it easy as Archana Venkataraman, Sheethal Goutham, Liza Pereira and Isha Lakhani sailed into the second round of the 5,000-dollar ITF women's tennis circuit second leg at the DLTA Complex on Tuesday.

Top seed Venkatraman whizzed past a hapless Naina Karsolia 6-1, 6-0 delivering an word of caution to her challengers; teenage sensation and the No 1 junior Lakhani trounced Deepa Chakrabarthy by an identical margin, and second seed Goutham toyed with Vimal Ragini before winning 6-1, 6-3.

In another straight sets demolition, third seed Pereira took little time and effort to dispose off Harpreet Gill 6-1, 6-1.

Unseeded Priyanka Parekh and Kamini Murugaboopathy upstaged Chirsant Rajur and Iciri Rai 6-1, 6-4 and 1-6, 6-3, 6-4 respectively.

Also progressing into the second round were Sandhya Nagraj and Yamini Thukkaiandi, who overcame Vishika Cheetri and Rath Kumar 6-1, 6-2 and 3-6, 6-4, 6-3 respectively.

On Monday, India's teen sensation and sixth seed Ankita Bhambri survived a scare before beating Asha Nandakumar 76 (7-3), 6-4 to book her place in the pre-quarter-finals.

On a day that saw two foreigners battling it out on the court, Korea's Jung-Yoon Shin beat Varsha Shivashankar in straight sets 4-6, 6-4, 7-6 (7-5), while seventh seed Preety Rao registered a convincing 6-1, 6-4 win over Aya Oasa of Japan.

In the other matches, fifth seed Shruti Dhawan blanked out wild card Parul Goswami 6-0, 6-0; Sagarika Phadke trounced Summer Bhullar 6-1, 6-0; Anupuma Rajur beat Pallavi Sharma 6-1, 6-0 and Madhuri Ranganathan beat Rani Smita Jain 6-2, 6-1.

Lata Assudani was the only player to move into the next round without having to sweat it out under the Delhi sun, having got a walkover over Katie Muler of South Africa.

In the double's quarter-finals, only one of the four matches went in to the third set, with Vishika Chhetri and Parul Goswami beating Sandhya Nagaaj and Madura Ranganathan 3-6, 6-2, 6-3.

In the other matches, Lata Assudani and Rati Kumar beat Harpreet Gill and Nanina Karsolia 6-3, 6-3; Iciri Rai and Preeti Rao beat Priyanka Parekh and Ragini Vimal 6-2, 6-0; Isha Lakhani and Liza Pereira beat Anupama Rajur and Chirashanti Rajur 6-3, 6-4.