In the Billie Jean King Cup play-off , India’s top-ranked singles tennis player Ankita Raina and young Karman Kaur Thandi lost their opening matches> Let us share here that this match was tie to Latvia’s Jelena Ostapenko and Anastasija Sevastova, respectively to begin their campaign on a disappointing note.

Talking about match scores, Ostapenko was made to work hard for her 6-2, 5-7, 7-5 win over Raina in a match where the home favourite committed a lot of unforced errors, Latvian No. 1 Sevastova, ranked 47, posted a 6-4, 6-0 win over Thandi, ranked No. 691.  India are playing at this stage of the competition for the first time and on paper are the clear underdogs.

Here it is to be noted that India’s No. 1 Raina, at 174 in the WTA rankings, started off a little nervously but soon got into her stride and battled hard from the back of the court, the favoured domain of the home player who is the 2017 French Open champion. There were six breaks of serve in the first set, including both opening games, but the telling breaks came in the fourth and fifth games when Ostapenko broke and then held her serve to open up a clear lead.

Sports and youth welfare dept urges to cancel all sports activities in the state

IPL 2021: ECB reports says Ben Stokes will not be able to play cricket for several months

Kohli joins Sachin-Kapil club, Wisden chooses best ODI cricketer of the decade

Kohli's salary equals the salary of the entire Pakistani team, look at the figures