Karman squanders super start to bow out of Fergana ITF event

Promising Indian singles player Karman Kaur Thandi was today knocked out of the USD 25000 ITF women's event after losing a tight first round match against Russia's Elena Rybakina, here.
Seventh seed Karman lost the match 6-1 6-7 (1) 4-6 after fighting hard for two hours and 17 minutes.
The Indian, who turned 19 last week, put herself in a great position by taking the first set for the loss of just one game but the Russian (ranked 533) turned it around to shock the higher-ranked player (450).
Karman made a flying start, breaking her rival twice to race to a 4-0 lead but dropped serve in the fifth. It allowed the Russian to get on board but Karman immediately broke back for a comfortable 5-1 lead.

The Indian had no problem in serving out the opener on her second set point.
Elena put up a much better resistance in the second set as she pushed Karman in the fourth game, looking for a break to seize early initiative but the Indian managed to hold after two deuce points.

In the sixth game too, Karman was up 40-0 but Elena forced two deuce points with a dogged fight before Karman held serve.
Eventually it boiled down to a tie-breaker in which the Russian dominated. She took a 4-0 lead and closed the set easily in her favour.

The fight continued in the third set. It was Karman who got the first opportunity to draw blood and she did it in the sixth game, opening up a 4-2 lead only to drop serve in the next game and it was back on serve.
The Russian broke Karman in the ninth game for one final time and served out the set in the next.
India have three more players in the singles event and interestingly all of them have Russian opponents in their first rounds.