ITF Women's Open: Ankita Raina Reaches Semis With Win Over Jacqueline Cabaj Awad

Ankita Raina scripted a 4-6 6-2 6-4 comeback win over Sweden’s Jacqueline Cabaj Awad to make the singles semi-finals of the ITF Women’s Open on Friday.

The second-seeded Ankita will face Lithuanian third-seeded Justina Mikulskyte in the first semi-final. Justina got the better of Russian qualifier Ekaterina Kazionova 6-3 6-2.

In the other semi-final, top seed Dalila Jakkupovic will be up against unseeded Yeonwoo Ku of South Korea, who raced past Kazakhstan’s Zhibek Kulambayeva 6-0 6-3.

Ankita and Jacqueline held their respective serves until the fourth game, where the Indian appeared to have some lapse in conceding the fifth game.

The Swede stepped it up to race to 5-2 lead before Ankita attempted a comeback. As she broke her opponent’s serve in the eighth game, besides holding her serve in the ninth, Jacqueline eventually served it out for the set.

Ankita bounced back in the second set, going up 3-0 with a break in the second game, while she also broke the Swede’s serve in the sixth game before taking the set 6-2 with some crafty cross-court winners.

However, a couple of unforced errors proved costly for the Indian in the opening game of the deciding set.

The 28-year-old Jacqueline earned a break and was up 4-2 before Ankita upped the ante, forcing the former to commit mistakes.

The 31-year-old Indian acquired a crucial break in the eighth game, thus levelling the score.

Carrying the momentum, Ankita took advantage of a tiring Jacqueline, breaking her serve in the eighth game and halting the Swede’s bid for her 10th ITF title.

The other Indian in the fray, Sahaja Yamalapalli put up a fight against Slovenian top seed Dalila before losing 5-7 6-3 0-6.

Ankita also booked her place in the doubles final partnering Zhibek Kulambayevam of Kazakhstan as they overcame the challenge of the Indo-Japanese pair Riya Bhatia and Michika Ozeki 7-5 6-2.

The top-seeded duo now have a date with the pair of Jacqueline and Justina Mikulskyte, who are coming off a success over the Korean-Latvian duo Yeonwoo Ku and Diana Marcinkevica 7-6 (7) 7-5 in the other semi-final.