Tennis: Holders enter quarters of national championships

Top seeds Karunuday Singh and Rishika Sunkara advanced to the quarter-finals of the men's and women's singles category, respectively, at the Fenesta Open National Tennis Championship here Wednesday.

Karunuday registered a hard fought 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 win over P.C. Vignesh, while Rishika edged past Riya Bhatia 7-5, 1-6, 7-5 at the R.K. Khanna Tennis Complex here.

In the men's section, defending champion Mohit Mayur Jayaprakash eased into the third round with a 6-2, 6-1 win over Saurav Sukul. But fifth seed Shaikh Abdullah lost 3-6, 6-3, 0-6 to Siddharth Rawat. Second seed Vishnu Vardhan beat Kunal Anand 6-1,7-6(3).

In women's singles, title holder Prerna Bhambri also registered a comfortable 6-1, 6-1 win over T. Palani Vale.

Second seed Shweta Rana downed Aashima Garg 6-1, 6-2, while fourth seed Vaniya Dangwal was made to sweat by Ramya Natrajan before she won 6-2, 3-6, 6-1 in the pre-quarterfinals.

Also making it to the last eight stage was fifth seed Amrita Mukherjee, who notched a 6-1, 6-1 win over Anjali Thakur and Karman Kaur Thandi who edged past Simran Kaur Sethi 7-5, 6-3.