Seasoned Rushmi Chakravarthi needed to bring all her experience to the fore against Sharon Sanchana Paul before walking away with a 7-6(4), 6-3 victory in the opening round of  $10,000 ITF women’s tournament at the Delhi Lawn Tennis Association on Tuesday.

Rushmi, who entered the tournament as a qualifier, struggled to find her rhythm in the opening set. Leading 5-3, she slumped to a rash of errors. The set tumbled into a tie-breaker, where she prevailed.

The 35-year-old Chennai player then regrouped in the second set, jumping to a 3-1 lead before closing the set and the match in two hours and five minutes.

“I was out of playing for a while now. My performance was up and down today. I played the qualifiers but there I wasn’t pushed much.  I needed a match like this to get a feel of things,” said Chakravarthi, who next plays against her doubles partner and second-seeded Ankita Raina.

Ankita needed mere 50 minutes to send Treta Bhattacharyya packing 6-1, 6-0.
It was a fairly easy ride for other leading seeds as well. Third-seeded Rishika Sunkara showed the door to Damini Sharma 6-4, 6-3 while eighth-seeded Natasha Palha made short work of Arantxa Andrady 6-1, 6-0 in 50 minutes.

Results: Women’s singles (Round 1, Indians unless mentioned): Ankita Raina (2) bt Treta Bhattacharyya 6-1, 6-0; Ambika Pande bt Jeni Patel 6-0, 6-1; Sai Samhitha Chamarthi bt Megha Sehrawat 6-2, 6-3; Rishika Sunkara (3) bt Damini Sharma 6-4, 6-3; Natasha Palha (8) bt Arantxa Andrady 6-1, 6-0; Eetee Maheta bt Aishwarya Aggarwal (ret hurt) 6-1, 3-0; Rushmi Chakravarthi bt Sharon Sanchana Paul 7-6(4), 6-3; Prarthana Thombare (5) bt Likitha Shetty 6-4,7-6 (9); Vaniya Dangwal bt Nehel Sahni 3-6, 6-2, 7-6(2); Naomi Totka (7) bt Zainab Ali Sajjad 6-2, 6-2; Sneha Padamata bt Manya Nagpal 5-7, 6-2, 6-2; Adnya Naik bt Bhuvana Kalva 2-6, 6-3,  7-6(3).