Pranjala storms into girls final

Country's top junior, Pranjala Yadlapalli, scored a hard-fought win over Khim Iglupas of Philippines to enter the girls' singles final of the BVG India-MSLTA B1 ITF Asian Junior Tennis Championships today.
In the semi final, fifth-seeded defending champion Pranjala stopped the winning run of the unseeded Khim, winning 2-6 6-4 6-2 in just over two hours to set up the summit clash against Xiyu Wang of China.
Wang upset sixth-seeded Yang Lee of Chinese Taipei 6-1 6-2 in the other semi-final held at the MSLTA School of Tennis in the Mhalunge Balewadi complex here.
Pranjala and her partner, Mayuka Aikawa of Japan, lost the doubles final to Rifanty Kahfiani of Indonesia and Yang Lee of Chinese Taipei who won 6-4 6-3.

"In the beginning, I had no idea about my opponent's game and so I just treated the first set as a warm-up game. In the second and third sets I played a patient game and forced my opponent to play long rallies. It was a brain game which worked for me," said Pranjala about her win over Khim.
In the boys' singles, second seed Alberto Lim - ranked 31 in the world - registered a close 6-7(3) 6-3 6-3 win over third-seeded Japanese rival Yuta Shimizu, ranked 51 in the world, in the semi finals.
Lim moved up against another Japanese opponent, eighth seeded Tajima Naoki, in tomorrow's final after the latter ended the brilliant run of Anthony Tang of Hong Kong, winning the other semi final, 7-6(3) 6-3.

Toru Horie and Yunosuke Tanaka of Japan claimed the boys' doubles title by outplaying second-seeded Chinese pair of Chengze Lyu and Lingxi Zhao 6-3 6-4 to claim 180 ITF points.