Jahnavi Parekh scores

Indian lass Jahnavi Parekh, playing with Katja Kovac of Slovakia, won her first round doubles match at the $10,000 Satellite in Waco, Texas.

Jahnavi and Katja defeated Colleen Chung and Cynthia Tow of the United States 6-1, 6-4. They will meet second seeds Kelly Hyndman of the US and Jin-hee Kim of Korea in the second round.

In singles, Jahnavi will face second seed Stephanie Mabry of the US in the second round. Earlier, she had defated qualifier Natalia Dziamidzenka of Belarus 6-2, 4-6, 6-1 in the first round.

Jahnavi, 23, hails from Bombay. She was ranked India No.1 in singles and No. 2 in doubles, and No. 98 on the ITF junior rankings in 1996-97. In 1998 she went to play tennis for Boylor University in the US.

In 1999-2000 junior season, she finished the year with a 39-9 record, which earned the Baylor women's first-ever all-American honour. She apeared in the spring rankings at No. 17 and was ranked as high as No. 8 before finishing at No. 21.

She was also placed second in the ITA Regional Rolex Tournament and won the qualifying singles bracket of the ITA All-American championships. Her 20 doubles wins tied for the eighth best in a single season total in school history.

In Fall 2000, playing for seniors, Jahnavi was ranked No. 18 in the December ITA rankings.

At the $50,000+H Orbetello Challenger in Italy, Manisha Malhotra and Leanne Baker lost in the first round of the doubles.

They were unseeded and ended up playing against the second seeded Argentinian pair of Maria Elena Salerni and Patricia Tarabini. They went down 1-6, 4-6.

The duo had won titles at the Bastad and Marseille Challengers recently.

On the men's circuit, at the USA F17 event in Pittsburgh, all the Indian players went out in the first round.

In the singles, Rishi Sridhar lost to wildcard Hamid Mirzadeh of the United States 2-6, 4-6; Mustafa Ghouse lost to eighth seed Bjorn Jacob of Germany 3-6, 3-6.

In the doubles, Mustafa Ghouse and Phil Stolt of the US lost 6-7(2), 3-6 to Bradon Kramer of the US and Eduardo Morones of Mexico. Rishi Sridhar and Manoj Mahadevan lost to Ignacio Gonzales-King of Argentina and Marcio Torres of Brazil 4-6, 3-6.