Sharmada only seeded player ousted from ITF at SMTA

Fifth seed Sharmada Balu was the only casualty as all other seeded players sailed into the singles quarterfinals of the Pooja Ventures ITF USD 10,000 women's tennis tournament, here today.
Balu, who lost to Amrita Mukhejee, was cruising in the second round contest as she didn't let her rival win a single game in the opening set but eventually she ran out of steam and lost 6-0 4-6 2-6.
Amrita will now clash with top seed Prarthana Thombare, who fought off the challenge from Damini Sharma 6-7 (4) 6-3 6-0 in her second round match at the Sania Mirza Tennis Academy, which is hosting an ITF tournament for the first time.

The other seeded players, setting up the quarterfinals against each other were Natasha Palha and Eetee Mehta.
Third seed Natasha downed Sharon Sanchana Paul 6-1 6-4 while seventh seed Eetee blasted past Rishika Ravindran 6-0 6-2.
In the bottom-half of the draw, second seed Shweta Rana defeated Arthi Munian 6-2 6-3 to set her last-eight stage contest against sixth seed Nidhi Chilumula, who blanked wild card D Venugopal Tatachar 6-0 6-0.
The final quarter-final will be between fourth seed Rishika Sunkara and eighth seed Bhuvana Kalva.
Rishika outplayed Reshma Ganapathy 6-0 6-1, while Bhuvana faced stiff resistance from Manya Nagpal before prevailing 6-4 7-5.