Yubrani Banerjee beats Kashish Bhatia at UTR Pro women’s tournament
November 10, 2022
Yubrani Banerjee wriggled out of the clutches of Kashish Bhatia for a 7-6(3), 6-2 victory in a Group C match of the UTR Pro $25,000 women’s tennis tournament at the DLTA Complex on Wednesday.
It was Kashish who was serving for the first set at 5-4 and 6-5, but Yubrani fought back to even the scores and pulled through in the tie-break with her energetic game.
It was her birthday, and Yubrani had that extra grit and keenness to have a winning performance to make it more memorable.
It was another chance missed for Kashish who had put up a fine performance the previous day against Farhat Aleen Qamar, before losing in three sets. Aleen had to quit the tournament owing to a painful forearm injury and her place was taken by Riya Sachdeva.
Riya was training at the venue in the morning when the call came to step on the court for a match.
To her credit, Riya took up an attacking style of play against the hard-hitting Jagmeet Kaur Grewal, who dropped four games on way to victory.
Jennifer Luikham was in a spot of bother against Bela Tamhankar but turned the tide in her favour at the crunch for a 7-6(3), 6-2 victory.
In the match between two replacements in the group, Sachi Sharma beat Shruti Gupta.
National championship finalist Sai Samhitha regained a semblance of her strong game to beat Riya Uboveja in group-D, while Vanshika Chaudhary prevailed over Kavya Khirwar in an even contest.
The Results:
Group-A: Jennifer Luikham bt Bela Tamhankar 7-6(3), 6-2; Sachi Sharma bt Shruti Gupta 6-3, 6-0.
Group-B: Sharmada Balu bt Himaanshika Singh 6-0, 6-0; Avishka Gupta bt Ruma Gaikaiwari 6-1 (retired).
Group-C: Jagmeet Kaur Grewal bt Riya Sachdeva 6-1, 6-3; Yubrani Banerjee bt Kashish Bhatia 7-6(3), 6-2.
Group-D: Sai Samhitha bt Riya Uboveja 7-5, 6-0; Vanshika Chaudhary bt Kavya Khirwar 6-4, 7-5
