Prerna Bhambri survived a scare on Tuesday. The second seed was made to work hard to seal a second-round berth by junior national champion Prarthana Thombare on the second day of the Fenesta Open national tennis championship.
The local girl fought for over three hours to set up a clash
with Tarranum Handa with a 6-7, 7-6, 6-0 victory at the DLTA complex.
Though Bhambri began well, breaking Thombare in the third game of the first set, she quickly lost her advantage. Young Thombare broke her in the eighth and 10th games to pocket the first set in tiebreak.
In the second, Prerna fought back to save two match points and level the scores. After that, she simply raced through. Meanwhile, top seed Rishika Sunkara had an easy opener, demolishing Likitha Shetty 6-3, 6-0 to set up a clash with Devanshi Bhimjiyani.
In the men's singles, third-seeded Siddharth Rawat got the better of Kunal Anad 4-6, 6-4, 6-2, while PC Vignesh, the fourth seed, knocked out Yannick Nelord 6-3, 6-4.