French Open: Ankita Raina Crashes Out After Straight-sets Loss in 2nd Round of Qualifiers

Ankita Raina was knocked out of the French Open qualifiers on Wednesday as she lost to Belgian 17th seed Greet Minnen in straight sets. Ankita could not pose much of a threat to the Belgian at all and was bageled in the second set, losing 2-6, 0-6. Ankita is currently on the 182nd place in the WTA rankings while Minnen is a world No.125. Ankita had played a three-setter in the first round of the qualifiers, where she came from behind to beat higher-ranked Arina Rodionova 3-6, 6-1, 6-4 in a rain-affected thriller.

On Wednesday, Ankita was no match to Minnen, winning only 46 per cent of her first serves and even worse, she only managed 26 per cent of her second serve points. On the other hand, Minnen won 59 per cent of her first serve points and got a good 65 per cent win rate on her second serves.

While Ankita did converted one of the three break points she earned, Minnen converted six out of the 12 break points opportunities she created for herself. In the end, there was a vast gap in the total points won as well, where Minnen won 69 to Ankita’s 45.

On Tuesday, three Indian boys in Prajnesh Gunneswaran, Ramkumar Ramanathan and Sumit Nagal were in action. While Prajnesh could not cross the first hurdle and lost 2-6, 2-6 to German Oscar Otte, Ramanathan and Nagal won their respective first round matches.

Ramanathan showed excellent grit to eke out a come-from-behind victory against American Michael Mmoh. He registered a 2-6, 7-6 (4), 6-3 win over Mmoh despite being outplayed in the first set. Even though Mmoh won a couple of more points than Ramanathan overall, what worked for Ramanathan was his 80 per cent win percentage on his first serves.

Nagal also registered a fairly easy 6-3, 6-3 win over Italian Roberto Marcora in his first round of qualifying. Nagal was solid throughout the match getting in a brilliant 97 per cent of his first serves, of which he won 71 per cent points. Where Nagal will have to improve for his second round match is his break points conversion. Nagal brought up a fantastic 13 break point chances and converted three of those.

Later on Wednesday, Ramanathan will take on Uzbekistan’s Denis Istomin while Nagal is up against Chilean Alejandro Tabilo.

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