Mumbai WTA: Youngsters Sahaja, Shrivalli takes their first-ever top 100 win

Indian youngsters showcase top-quality tennis in front of home crowd at L&T Mumbai Open WTA 125K Series where Sahaja Yamalapalli, Shrivalli Rashmikaa Bhamidipaty registered their biggest win of the career after clinching top 100 victories in Mumbai.

The India no.2 Sahaja Yamalapalli, had the toughest possible opponent in the first round but she displayed great resilience and upset the top seeded Kayla Day of USA in a tight three-setter (6-4, 1-6, 6-4) while Shrivalli bows out the second seeded Nao Hibino of Japan in another close three-setter (2-6, 6-1, 7-6).

This was their first-ever meeting to someone ranked under 100 in the world and they won their first-ever top 100 wins at the first attempt in two hard-fought matches, Sahaja went on to win the match after 2 hours and 43 minutes while Shrivalli takes two hours and 17 minutes to reach the finish-line.

This is the biggest WTA event for India and they made full use of the home advantage and advances to the second round. This will help her to get closer to the top 300 in rankings, currently she is at 336.

Sahaja started the match on a high note breaking kayla's first serve to take a lead of 2-0 but kayla bounced back and equalized the score at 2-2. She was trailing 3-4 in the set after conceding the second break but she made a comeback to take the set 6-4 after breaking two back to back serves of Kayla.

The American showed her experience and comfortably takes the second set 6-1 and took the match to decider. The decider or the final set went on very smoothly with both players serving efficiently before Sahaja makes a move and broke the last serve of Kayla and took the set 6-4.

Earlier in the day, 19-year-old, ranked No 841 in the world, Vaishnavi Adkar put on an impressive show, paying against an opponent ranked more than 500 spots above her in the rankings.

She took one set against her but could not continue the momentum and eventually her opponent Sohyun Park took the match (6-2, 2-6, 6-1) in just under two hours.

Shrivalli ranked 520 in the world makes a comeback from one set down to take the match into final set where she clinches the match on tie-breaker.

She didn't had a very good start and puts up under the pressure by the Japanese player straight from the start and she gets broken back-to back on her first three serving games of the match and she drops the first game 2-6.

She makes a brilliant comeback in the second set and easily clinched it with 6-1 and taken the match into final set where the fight was very close and both the players were giving their all and hence forced a tie-breaker, which Shrivalli takes on second time of asking with 7-5 and through to second round.

Experienced Rutuja Bhosale also through to the second round after a straight-set (6=4, 7-5) win over Thailand's Peangtarn Plipuech.

Meanwhile, experienced pair of Ankita Raina and Rutuja Bhosale suffered defeat in a close match (6-3, 2-6, 8-10) to the pair of GBR's Naiktha Bains and Hungarian Fanny Stollar in the first round of women doubles category.