Karman, Pranjala make first round exits in contrasting styles

India number two Karman Thandi and number three Pranjala Yadlapalli made contrasting first round exits from the L and T Mumbai Open being played at the Cricket Club of India here on Wednesday.

Karman made a tame exit as she lost in straight sets, 2-6, 4-6, to top-seeded Chinese Saisai Zheng in the singles after starting off brilliantly by taking a 2-0 lead, but then slumping badly and dropping the next ten games on the trot to lose in 1 hour and 17 minutes.

But the bigger heartbreak was reserved for Pranjala, ranked 288. She won the opening set 6-3 and was on the cusp of eliminating number five seed Luksika Kumkhum of Thailand when she was serving for the match at 5-3 before the latter made a splendid comeback and won 7-5 to level the set scores.

A downcast Pranjala, who came into this USD 125,000 WTA event with back to back wins in two 25K ITF events in Lagos, Nigeria, dropper her serve early in the third set and lost the match 3-6 5-7 1-6 in 2 hours, 13 minutes to the 103rd ranked Thai.

Pranjala, who is training under Stephen Koon in the Thai capital of Bangkok, had grabbed the opening set with some aggressive play that helped her break Kumkhums serve twice
Results: