Vandana Murali, Medini Sharma score upsets

Up-and-coming Vandana Murali and Medini Sharma caused big upsets when they knocked out second seed Samrita Sekar and third seed Radhika Tulpule respectively to enter the quarter-finals in the $5000 ITF women's Masters tennis tournament in Pune on Tuesday.

Seventeen-year-old Medini pulled off the first upset when she defeated second seed and winner of the first leg Samrita Sekar 6-3, 6-3.

The other surprise was provided by 14-year-old Chennai girl Vandana Murali, who displayed superb tennis to outplay local girl and third leg winner Radhika Tulpule 3-6, 6-4, 6-3.

Top seed Sai Jayalakshami initially looked like suffering the same fate as Sekar and Tulpule but pulled up her socks in time to get past Nandini Perumal 6-7(7-5), 6-1, 6-0 to snatch a quarter-final berth.

Sonal Phadke joined her in the last eight after thrashing Indonesian junior Eveline Rusidianto 6-2, 6-3.

Fourth seed Sheetal Gautam was the only seed to have an easy outing as she made short work of Krushmi Chedda 6-3, 6-0.

In the longest match of the day, Rati Kumar scraped past Kamini Murugaboopathy 3-6, 6-2, 7-6 (9-7).

Medini, daughter of former India badminton player Sanjay Sharma, hammered an array of strokes on both flanks to dispose off Samrita in straight sets.

Sharma also hit stunning backhand winners and rushed to the net at the very first opportunity, hassling Sekar into commiting unforced errors on way to her first major victory.