Nagpur: As many as three players found the Nagpur heat too hot to handle and retired midway in their opening-round sets in the ITF Women’s World Tennis Tour at the NDHTA courts in Ram Nagar on Wednesday.While the afternoon heat took its toll on Netherlands’ Emma Van Poppel, Nepal’s Abhilasha Bista and India’s seventh seed Akanksha Nitture, the seasoned campaigners, including fourth-seeded Ankita Raina and third-ranked Zeel Desai, won their respective opening-round contests with ease.Despite being seeded lowly in fourth place, experienced Ankita Raina showed her brilliance when she made light work of compatriot Soha Sadiq in straight sets, 6-3, 6-4.Third-seeded Zeel Desai followed and clinched her opening-round contest 6-2, 6-2 against A Easwaramurthi to secure her place in the pre-quarterfinals.In the only upset of the day, wild card entrant Kashish Bhatia stunned higher-ranked Bela Tamkhankar 6-1, 6-2 to face the challenge of Madhurima Sawant, who won her opening-round clash against Akanksha Nitture after the latter retired in the second set trailing 0-2. Madhurima won the neck-and-neck first set 7-6 (6).Similarly, Sonal Patil forced Emma Van Poppel of the Netherlands to retire in the second set after winning the first outing 6-4. When Emma retired due to heat, Sonal was leading 4-0 in the second set. Later, the Netherlands duo of Emma and Ekaterina Khodzhaeva gave a walkover to the India-Malaysia pair of Pooja Ingale and Elsa Wan in the women’s doubles opening round.Abhilasha Bista retired against Germany’s A Kuparev in the second set (1-1) after losing the first 0-6.In the women’s singles pre-quarterfinals, top seed Vaishnavi Adkar will face Ksenia Laskutova, while second seed Zhibek Kulambayuva will square up against Pooja Ingale. Zeel Desai will take on Ekaterina Khodzhaeva, and Ankita Raina will face Sonal Patil on Thursday.
