Tulpule shocks Jayalakshmi

Our Correspondent

Eighth seed Radhika Tulpule caused a major upset in the NECC-ITF women's tennis championship, in Pune on Thursday, beating top seed Sai Jayalakshmi in straight sets to advance into the final, where she will take on seventh seed Archana Venkataraman.

Tulpule surprisingly proved too good for Jayalakshmi, winning her semi-final in an hour and 22 minutes at 6-4, 6-3, while Venkataraman went through after her opponent, unseeded Dea Sumantri of Indonesia retired after losing the first set 1-6 in the other semi-final.

The final will be played on Friday.

Breaks in the first and third games put Tulpule high in the saddle as she raced to a 4-0 lead in the first set. And though she dropped serve in the sixth game, mainly because she tried to finish off the rallies fast with some down the line shots from the deep, she was untroubled by whatever Jayalakshmi threw at her. She was so confident that she even managed to stave off five game points as she proceded to take the set.

The second set too began in similar fashion with Tulpule sticking to the baseline and catching her opponent on the wrong foot with good passing shots. In a trice she was up 3-0 -- breaking in the first and third games -- and from then on never looked back Jayalakshmi managed a break in the fourth but Tulpule returned the break in the ninth to close out the set and match.