Poonacha, Humeira win titles

Telengana's Shaikh Humeira overcame a strong challenge from local favourite Yubrani Banerjee to clinch the women's singles title with a 6-1 4-6 7-5 win at the National Ranking Tennis Tournament 2019 here Saturday.

In the men's singles final, it was more of a one-sided affair as India No. 8 and the top seed of the draw, Niki Poonacha of Andhra Pradesh grabbed the title with a 6-3 6-4 win over Dakshineshwar Suresh.

Third seeded Yubrani seemed clueless in the opening set and displayed a series of errors as she handed over the set to Humeira 1-6.

The local challenger managed to get her rhythm back and kept a ball extra to frustrate the hard-hitting Humeira as the former won the set 6-4.

In the decider, both the players held serves till 5-5, where crowd-favourite Yubrani dropped serve, allowing Humeira to clinch the title and walk away with 40 valuable national ranking points.