Banerjee, Eqbal keep Bengal hopes alive

Local challenger Yubrani Banerjee survived a scare before downing Kaavya Sahwney of Uttar Pradesh in the opening round of the women's singles at the National Ranking Tennis Tournament here Tuesday.

Banerjee, seeded third in the women's singles draw, seemed too erratic at the start as she dropped her serve twice to hand over the opening set to her unseeded opponent from Uttar Pradesh.

From there, Banerjee made a comeback by winning the next set by a comfortable 6-3 margin.

In the decider, Banerjee, who is Bengal's only seed in the women's singles draw, took a massive 5-1 lead but faltered to drop two consecutive games before closing the match 2-6 6-3 6-3.

Ishaque Eqbal, also from Bengal and seeded fourth, beat Andhra Pradesh's Sivadeep Kosaraju in straight sets 6-4 6-2 in the first round of men's singles.