PTI
PUNE
Anna Morgina and Viktoria Kamenskaya led the Russian charge into the semifinals of the USD 25,000 NECC-ITF Women's tennis tournament in the top half of the draw at Deccan Gymkhana here on Thursday.
Unseeded Morgina slugged out hard to beat giant-slayer Georgina Garcia-Perez of Spain, who had beaten top-seeded Jia-Jing Lu of China in the second round, to set up semifinal clash with the fellow Russian Kamenskaya.
Georgina fired seven aces and committed three double faults against Morgina, who was more fault-ridden as she served five double faults, but still the Spaniard ended up on the losing side. Morgina won the first set 6-4, while her opponent took the second by the same margin.
The third set went into the tie-breaker where both won 67 percent of their service games before the Russian closed out the set 7-6 (9-7) in her favour.
Kamenskaya, too, was taken to the distance by her sixth- seeded opponent, Barbara Haas of Austria, before she closed out the contest 6-4 0-6 6-4.
In the bottom half of the draw, no. 2 seed Polina Leykina of Russia lost to Belarussian Aryna Sabalenka in straight sets, 4-6 2-6.
Sabalenka will meet seventh seed Nina Stojanovic of Serbia who ended the run of qualifier Ana Veselinovic of Montenegro. Stojanovic won 6-3 7-5.
In the doubles competition, India's Prarthana Thomabare, who is seeded no. 2 with Chinese Taipeis Chieh-Yu Hsu, will meet the top-seeded pair of Valentyna Ivakhnenko of Russia and Anastasiya Vasylyeva of Ukraine in the final.
Thombare and Hsu defeated fourth-seeded duo of Jia-Jing Lu and Ankita Raina of India 4-6 7-5 10-8, while Ivakhnenko and Vasylyeva got past third seeds Anna Morgina and Nina Stojanovic 5-7 6-3 10-6.
