Kyra Shroff leads Indian challenge at Gulbarga ITF

International tennis returns to Gulbarga after a gap of five years, with the $10,000 prize money Women’s ITF tournament kicking off at the Chandrashekar Patil Stadium here on Monday.

It is the first time that an international women’s event is being staged here. Gulbarga had hosted ITF men’s tournaments in 2002 and 2007.

Being staged in their backyard, the event offers an excellent opportunity for the Indian players to improve their rankings. Players from ten countries are taking part in the tournament and leading the Indian challenge is Kyra Shroff, who is the highest ranked Indian after Sania Mirza on the world list. Kyra, ranked 531 in the world, is seeded third here, and will look to make home advantage count.

Venise Chan of Hong Kong, ranked 371 on the WTA Tour, is the top seed while Emily Smith of Great Britai, ranked 384, is the second seed.

Karnataka’s top junior Spurti Shivalingaiah, former National champion Rushmi Chakra­varthi, Vaishnavi Reddy and Sai are the four wild cards in the main draw of 32. The final round qualifying matches were completed on Sunday and among those making it to the main draw was local lass Shalaka Manjunath, who beat compatriot Adnya Naik 6-0, 6-3.

Entry is free and matches would commence at 10 am daily, according to the organisers.  The seedings: Venise Chan Wing-Yau Venise (Hong Kong) 1; Emily Webley-Smith (Britain) 2; Kyra Shroff (India) 3; Zi Yang (China) 4; Rishika Sunkara (India) 5; Ankita Raina (India) 6; Yumi Miyazaki (Japan) 7; Nidhi Chilumula (India) 7.

Final qualifying results (Indians unless specified otherwise): Risa Hasegawa (Jpn) bt Natalia Khanejio 6-1 6-4; Oleksandra Korashvili (Ukr) bt Anushka Bhargava 6-1, 6-4; Hae-Sung Kim (Kor) bt Arantxa Andrady 6-3 6-0; Misa Kinoshita (Jpn) bt Vaniya Dangwal 6-2, 6-0; Shalaka Manjunath bt Adnya Naik 6-0, 6-3; Riya Bhatia bt Sanae Ohta (Jpn) 6-2 6-4; Ching-Wen HSU (Tpe) bt Chia Hsien Yang (Tpe) 6-4, 7-6 (7-5).