Pranjala, Batra stun top-ranked players to enter final

Unseeded Hyderabad girl Pranjala Yadlapalli continued her slaying of top-ranked players, knocking out second seed Hana Mortagy of Egypt in the singles semi-finals of the CCI-ITF juniors (under-18) tennis championship in Mumbai on Friday.

The 13-year-old girl, who shocked third Snehadevi Reddy in the previous round on Thursday, came up with another gallant performance to put it across Hana, winning 6-7(9), 6-2, 6-1 at the Cricket Club of India courts.

Pranjala will take on top seed Sri Vaishnavi Peddi Reddy, also from Hyderabad, in Saturday's final.

Vaishnavi easily prevailed over fifth seed Yekaterina Gubanova of Kazakhstan 6-4, 6-4 in the first semi-final.

Also through to the final in the corresponding boys' section was unseeded Garvit Batra, who shocked top seed Goran Markovic of Serbia 6-2, 6-2 in the semifinals.

Batra, ranked 951, had ousted fourth seed Auap Sagadat of Kazakhstan in the first round. He will meet third seed Chih-Chun Tang of Taipei in the final.

The latter got past seventh seed Dimitry Popko of Kazakhstan 6-1, 6-1.

Pranjala, a product of the Sanjay Tennis Academy in Hyderabad, played with loads of determination. But her lack of consistency allowed her Egyptian opponent to snatch a close first set.

Pranjala, leading 6-5 and serving for the opener, failed to convert three match-points and Hana fought back for another break to level the scores and forced the tie-breaker.

In the tie-breaker too, Pranjala, a ninth class student of Chinmaya Vidyalaya, had two more chances to clinch the set but was unable to convert them. Hana grabbed the reprieve and went on to close out the set, wining the tie-breaker 11-9.

However, Hana lost her steam thereafter due to the humid conditions, seemed to tire out and lost the next two sets rather tamely.