Prerna stuns Rushmi

Delhi girl Prerna, who reached the quarterfinals in Hyderabad last week, overcame 33-year-old Rushmi 6-4, 4-6, 6-3 in hot and blustery conditions here. Rushmi, who also made the Hyderabad quarterfinals, was sluggish on court and made a stream of errors to crash out in almost two hours. Rushmi struggled to keep up with the pace and power of Prerna’s groundstrokes and her serve lacked sting.

After trading a string of breaks in the first set, Prerna snatched the decisive one in the ninth game to serve out the set. Rushmi, however, did well to fight back in the second and draw parity. In the decider, Prerna played solid to go up 4-2 before closing out the set and the match.

She now plays reigning national champion and wildcard Ratnika Batra, who brushed aside  Jiayuan Xue of China 6-3, 6-2.