Maharashtra Herald, November 15, 2007
Suhrid Barua
PUNE: Players like to clench their fists or punch the air, but she has an altogether different way of bucking herself up - she likes to thump her thighs every time she needs to get her concentration going. Qualifier Alexandra Kolesnichenko of Uzbekistan kept patting her thighs every now and then en route to upstaging the fifth-seeded Nina Brachikova of Russia to romp into the quarter-finals of the $25,000 ITF women’s tennis tournament at the Deccan Gymkhana tennis courts on Wednesday.
The Tashkent lass, who will turn fifthteen next month, exhibited remarkable resilience to signal the end of Brachikova’s singles campaign, winning 7-6 (10-8), 6-3 in an intriguing tussle on court one. The 375-ranked burly Russian known for her booming serve and power-packed groundstrokes, acquitted herself well early on even as games went on serve in the opening set until the tie-break had to be enforced.
Kolesnichenko took the first set by the skin of the teeth and that seemed to rattle her opponent. Kolesnichenko held her serve to go up 2-1 in the second set. She produced a whipping forehand winner to break Brachikova’s serve in the fourth game to ensconce herself in the driver’s seat. She then held serve to take a 4-1 lead before a bit of drama unfolded.
Brachikova broke Kolesnichenko in the seventh game after holding serve the game before to narrow down the gap to 4-3. But Kolesnichenko immediately broke back to make it 5-3. Serving for the match, Kolesnichenko didn’t find the going easy as Brachikova drove her to the wall, taking the game to deuce twice before the Uzbek prevail.
The exit of Brachikova was not the only upset of the day. Third-seeded Neha Uberoi of US put up a spirited performance against Alexandra Panova before going down 6-7 (2-7), 5-7 in a ding-dong battle. Neha’s serve let her down badly. She double-faulted whopping 13 times. Both players traded breaks in the sixth and seventh games before the set was decided via tie-break.
The second set saw Neha dropping serve in the fifth game while Panova returned the favour in the next game. Both players held serve as the scoreline read 5-5. Panova then got the crucial break in the eleventh game to seal her place in the last-eight stage. Meanwhile, two Indians -Isha Lakhani and Rushmi Chakravarthi eased into the quarter-finals where they will run into each other.
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