Date-Krumm moves into quarterfinals

Fifth seed Kimiko Date-Krumm of Japan overcame a challenging opponent and an injury scare to beat Yi-Miao Zhou of China 6-4, 4-6, 6-2 and reach the quarterfinals of the USD 125,000 Sanjay Kakade Group Royal Indian Open WTA Challenger tournament here on Thursday. 

The 42-year-old Date-Krumm wasn’t at her best throughout the two hour, 12 minute encounter, but showed enough guile and intelligence to pull through and set up a last eight clash against compatriot and second seed Misaki Doi.

Date-Krumm, the second oldest player to win a WTA Tour event in the Open era, kept her approach simple and created eight breakpoint chances, winning two of them to claim the first set.

But with her first serve percentage dropping in the second set, it became difficult for the veteran to maintain her supremacy over an opponent who is much younger and has more powerful ground strokes.

The two players traded breaks five times in the second set before Zhou clinched the issue but it was Date-Krumm who held the upper hand in the decider.

Results (second round, prefix denotes seedings): Singles: 2-Misaki Doi (Chn) bt Noppawan Lertcheewakarn (Tha) 6-0 6-1; 1-Nina Bratchikova (Rus) bt Olga Savchuk (Ukr) 6-1 6-1; 5-Kimiko Date-Krumm (Jpn) bt Yi-Miao Zhou (Chn) 6-4 4-6 6-2. Doubles: 2-Nina Bratchikova (Rus)/ Oksana Kalashnikova (Geo) bt Olga Savchuk/ Elina Svitolina (Ukr) 7-5, 6-2.