Fourth seed Ankita advances

Zeel Desai (S3) got into form early and did not give her opponent A Easwaramurthi any chance as she took the match with the score reading 6-2, 6-2 Kashish Bhatia beat Bela Tamkhankar 6-1, 6-2 in a show of class.

Big upset of the day was that three players Emma Van Poppel, A Nitture, Abhilasha Bista conceded due to heat and weather conditions. Nine singles matches and three doubles were scheduled, out of which three were conceded because of injury and heat and one doubles was a walkover. Finally Nagpur's infamous heat caught up with the players who are used to better weather conditions of the west and today they got exposed to 37 degrees under the direct hot sun. All players were provided energy drink Enerzal and ample water, yet some damage was done due to the heat.

Sheetal Iyer, tournament supervisor, is managing the tournament very well with the team of chair umpires. The NDHTA courts are being prepared very well every single day by the court maintenance team. From Thursday, the tournament takes a turn and the competition heats up.

Vaishnavi Adkar, top seed, will face Ksenia Laskutova whereas Zhibek Kulambayuva (S2) faces Pooja Ingale. Zeel Desai (S3) faces Ekaterina Khodzhaeva and Ankita Raina (S4) faces Sonal Patil. Tomorrow is the pre quarters and will have eight singles and four doubles matches