The Indian challenge in the singles competition of the WTA Sunfeast Open ended with Sunitha Rao crashing out in the second round in Kolkata on Thursday.

The Florida-based Rao proved no match for Briton Anne Keothavong and went down 3-6, 2-6.

Earlier in the evening, Ukraine's Mariya Koryttseva brought the curtain down on giant-killer Vania King's campaign at the US $175,000 Open and clinched a quarter-final berth after a straight set second round victory.

King, who stunned top seed Marion Bartoli of France [Images] in the opening round on Tuesday, seemed deep in the woods against her lower-ranked opponent and went down 1-6, 2-6.

Koryttseva, ranked 74 places lower than US girl King, unleashed a barrage of power-packed ground strokes, to seal the issue in 77 minutes at the near-empty Netaji Indoor Stadium.

The 18-year old King failed to recreate her Tuesday night magic and committed a series of unforced errors.

The two unseeded players traded breaks in the first two games, but Koryttseva kept her cool on the big points to demolish King in her next three service games and pocket the set.

The Ukrainian, who has a world ranking of 164, maintained the momentum and broke King in the second and fifth games to open up a 5-1 lead.

A desperate King broke back in the next game to narrow the gap, but Koryttseva held serve in the eighth to march into the last eight.

Also moving to the last eight stage was seventh seed Italian Flavia Pennetta, who overpowered Uzbek girl Akgul Amanmuradova 6-1, 6-3.

World number 69 Pennetta finished off the encounter in just over an hour to set up a last eight meeting with fourth seeded Russian Maria Kirilenko.

The Italian broke the Uzbek's serve in the third, fifth and seventh games of the opening set which got over in no time.

Both players held serve till the seventh game of the second set before Pennetta got the break in the crucial eighth game and held serve in the ninth to shut out Amanmuradova.

Belarus girl Tatiana Poutchek, who accounted for fifth seed Alla Kudryavtseva in the opening round, also made it to the quarter-finals with a facile 6-3, 6-1 victory over Sweden's Sofia Arvidsson as did second seed Slovak Hantuchova, who beat Russian Anastasia Rodionova 6-2, 6-1 under an hour.

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