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Manisha Malhotra wins Satellite title

Shailesh Soni

Indian women's tennis star Manisha Malhotra pulled off a great upset over the top seed Rika Fujiwara of Japan in the final of the $10,000 USTA women's Satellite tournament at Druid Hill Park, Baltimore.

Malhotra, ranked 337 on the WTA, defeated Fujiwara, ranked 291, 7-6(5), 6-7(4), 6-2 in an intense three-setter.

The 23-year-old Manisha, who plays college tennis at Tennessee, won the first set over the tie-breaker, and looked on her way to a quick victory in the second set as she broke Fujiwara's serve twice en route to a 5-2 advantage, but wasted three match-points in the eighth game as Fujiwara sent three service winners to her forehand side. Fujiwara ran off the next three games before Malhotra broke her to even the set at 6-6.

Fujiwara dominated the ensuing tiebreaker with some of the hardest-hit shots of the match and took the set.

But the comeback in the second set seemed to take too much out of her as she started wilting under pressure. Manisha took charge and finished the third set to win the match in three hours.

Manisha won $1,600 and gets five more WTA points which will take her to a career-high 325th ranking on the WTA.

Meanwhile, Nirupama Vaidyanathan won her first doubles title in over three years at the $50,000 challenger at Mahwah, New Jersey on Sunday.

The second seeds Nirupama Vaidyanathan (#225) and Evie Dominikovic (Aus,164) upset the top seeds and much highly-ranked pair of Irina Selyutina (Kaz,45) and Lisa McShea (Aus,72), 6-4, 6-4.

The title gives Nirupama 40 WTA doubles points including 4 bonus, to add to the 90 she has now, which will take her doubles ranking up from 225 all the way to about #175.

The winning team won $2800, and Nirupama added $1400 to the $2300 she made from the singles semi-finals. The $800 she made last week for the singles quarter-finals and doubles at the Atlanta challenger adds up to $4500 form two weeks of hard work, a good amount of money for Nirupama, who is essentially on week-to-week finances on the tough tour.