HCL Junior Tennis: Thailand's Nirundorn knocks out Sharannya

Indian girls had a poor day and eight of them went down without much of a fight in the 2nd HCL Asian B1 Junior Tennis Championship here Tuesday. Eighth seed Mai Napatt Nirundorn of Thailand knocked out the national junior champion and wildcard entrant Sharannya Gaware 6-1, 6-0 at the Deccan Gymkhana.

The left-handed Indian girl, who just returned from the WTA Future Stars event, looked out of sort after her long journey from Singapore and went down without a fight. Japanese Saki Imamura showed fine court craft to oust local girl and India No. 3 Salsa Aher 6-4, 6-3, while third-seeded Mananchaya Sawangkaew of Thailand ended the hopes of junior national runner-up Vipasha Mehra 6-2, 6-4.

Fifth seed Mana Kawamura of Japan played impressively to put out former national champion Shivani Amineni 6-3, 6-3. Fourth-seeded Indonesian Priska Madelyn Nugroho got past Archita Mahalwal 7-6(2), 6-0, while second seed Himari Sato of Japan ended qualifier Prerna Vichare's run, winning 6-2, 6-4.

Also making tame exits were India's Muskan Gupta and Smriti Bhasin, losing in straight sets to respective seeded rivals Funa Khozaki of Japan and Jiaqi Wang of China. In boys' singles, seed No. 8 Thantub Suksumrarn of Thailand defeated Kevin Patel of India 6-4, 7-6 (3) to enter round two.

(With inputs from agencies.)