Sixth seed Isha Lakhani overcame fever to get the better of Shruti Dhawan 6-1, 4-6, 7-5 while unseeded Thassha Vitayaviroj of Thailand created a mild flutter when she knocked out eighth seed Maria Penkova of Bulgaria to enter the quarter-finals in the $10,0 00 NECC-ITF women's tennis tournament at Deccan Gymkhana courts in Pune on Wednesday.
Vitayaviroj led the march of three other foreigners -- second seed Akgul Amanmuradova of Uzbekistan, third seed Karen Patterson of Great Britain and fifth seed Chantal Coombs of Germany along with Indians Sonal Phadke, Ankita Bhambri, Megha Vakharia and Isha Lakhani into the last eight stage.
In the round of 16 played today, Sonal Phadke (India) stopped the winning run of Archana Venkataraman, who beat top seed Khoo Chin Bee of Malaysia, 6-4, 6-1 while Delhi's Ankita
Bhambri won without much effort against Rushmi Chakravarthi after the Rushmi retired with shoulder injury after losing the first set 6-4.
Fifth seed Chantal Coombs of Great Britian served out Sai Jayalakshmy 6-4, 6-3 while third seeded Karen Patterson defeated Thailand's Montinee Tangphong 6-4, 6-3.
However, second seed Akgul Amanmuradova continued her winning run, thrashing India's Lata Asudani 6-0, 6-1 while seventh seeded Isha Lakhani had to fight fever and a hard-hitting Shruti Dhawan (Ind) to win 6-1, 4-6, 7-5.
Sixth seed Megha Vakharia put the breakes on qualifier Parul Goswami, winning 6-2, 6-3.
