Pune, Nov 18 : India's Nirupama Sanjeev, Poojashree Venkatesha, Sanaa Bhambri and lucky loser Sheetal Goutham crashed out of the singles event of the $50,000 NECC-ITF Women's Tennis championships here Wednesday.

Uzbek wild card Sabina Sharipova, 15, upset second seeded Slovak Masa Zec Peskiric 6-3, 6-2 to enter the quarter-finals.

In the second round, top seed and 111 ranked Tamarine Tanasugarn stopped Nirupama 6-2,6-3 in 91 minutes, while third seeded Bojana Jovanovski outplayed Poojashree Venkatesha 6-1, 6-0.

London - Roger Federer and home hero Andy Murray were drawn Wednesday into the same group for the World Tour Finals, with the Scot due on court on Sunday to start the eight-man year-end wrap-up.

It is the second year in succession that Murray and Federer will go head-to-head in the round-robin stage at the concluding event of an 11-month season after Shanghai in 2008.

If the darting fuzzy yellow balls are too much to control, the International Tennis Federation now has a solution. And it’s colour coded.

In order to retain and encourage young tennis players to the game, the ITF initiated the ‘Play and stay’ campaign in 2007, which has spread to 120 countries so far, and the programme was launched in India — at the Maharashtra State Lawn Tennis Association in Mumbai courts over the weekend. After a conference with 20 tutors on the first day, six All India Tennis Association coaches were given specialised training for the programme.

With ace Indian paddler Achanta Sharath Kamal eying a top-50 spot in the world singles ranking, the spotlight would be on the tall player when the 19th Asian Table Tennis Championship kicks off at the UP Badminton Academy Hall here on Monday.

But as usual, powerhouse China are expected to walk away with the honours in perhaps the biggest table tennis tournament to have come to the city of nawabs.

Pune, Nov 14 : India's Shweta Kumari Solanki, Sonya Dayal and Tanvi Shah survived hiccups to move into the second round of the qualifiers in the $50,000 NECC-ITF Women's Tennis championships organised by the Deccan Gymkhana on their club courts.

In the first round of the qualifying, Shweta scraped past Treta Bhattacharyya 5-7, 6-4, 6-1, while Sonya survived a fighting Ankita Raina 6-3, 3-6, 7-6(3). Tanvi Shah scored a
3-6, 7-5, 6-1 win over Smriti Joon.

Knoxville, Tennesse, Nov 13 : India's Somdev Devvarman and Purav Raja moved into the semi-finals of the $50,000 ATP Challenger tennis here with an upset victory over Kaden Hensel and Adam Hubble.

Somdev and Raja went past third-seeded Australian pair 6-3, 6-1 and set-up a semifinal meeting with South African pair Raven Klaasen and Izak Van der Merwe.

Second-seeded Harsh Mankad of India and Treat Conard Huey of Philippines also reached the last four, beating Grigor Dimitrov of Bulgaria and Sweden's Fillip Prpic 6-7(5), 6-1, 10-4.

Knoxville (Tennessee), Nov 12 : India's Somdev Devvarman and Prakash Amritraj lost their opening round matches in the ATP Challenger tennis here.

Somdev, seeded sixth, went down to Roko Karanusic of Croatia 6-7 (8), 3-6 while Prakash Amritraj lost to South Africa's Izak Van der Merwe 3-6, 2-6 in the $50,000 hard court event.    

Somdev, however, cleared the doubles first round with fellow Indian Purav Raja going past Americans Cory Parr and Todd Paul 6-4, 7-6 (3).    

Chennai, Nov 12 : Defending champion Marin Cilic, the 21-year-old from Croatia, ranked 13th, has confirmed his participation in the 2010 ATP Aircel Chennai Open tennis to be held January 4-10 here.

Also in the main draw is 24-year-old Stanislas Wawrinka from Switzerland, who is currently ranked 21 but had achieved a career-high of nine last summer.

"Aircel Chennai Open is gaining in stature in ATP World Tour and I expect a very strong line-up in the event. It will be interesting to test my hard court skills again against some top players of the world. It will be fantastic to defend my title," Cilic said in a statement.

Paris - Roger Federer remains unruffled by his second-round exit to Julien Benneteau at the Paris Masters, with the Swiss number one convinced that he can live with a week of training at home before heading to London for the new year-end final.

The Swiss suffered his second setback in four days after going down to Novak Djokovic in the final at home in Basle - but there is no panic on Team Federer.

"I guess I'm a clay court specialist now," joked the reigning French Open champion who has only reached three career quarter-finals at the Bercy arena,

Paris, Nov 12 : India's Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi made an early exit from the Paris Masters, going down in the second round with their partners.

Fourth seeded Paes and Lukas Dlouhy of Czech Republic went down to American Travis Parrott and Australian Jordan Kerr 7-6(5), 4-6, 5-10 Wednesday.

Bhupathi and Mark Knowles of Bahamas, seeded third, also lost a close match 4-6, 7-6 (6), 7-10 to Simon Aspelin of Sweden and Paul Hanley of Australia.(IANS)

Paris - Russian Nikolay Davydenko moved into position for a place at the season-ending ATP final when he won his opening match at the Paris Masters 6-2, 6-1 over German Benjamin Becker Tuesday.

Davydenko, the number seven, is next in the queue for one of the last two spots remaining in the eight-man World Tour Finals in London from November 22.

The winner of last month's Shanghai title needed just 78 minutes to advance over Becker, the third German to lose in two days at the Bercy arena.

Paris - Marat Safin says Andre Agassi can ease his troubled mind over his guilt at taking drugs and tanking a match more than a decade ago with a simple plan - give back his millions in prize money.

The soon-to-retire Russian made the suggestion at the Paris Masters after a win in the first round which extended his career by one more match.

Safin is done with tennis after his exit at Bercy, where he owns three titles.

"He feels guilty? So let him just give back his titles, money, his Grand Slams!" Safin told the French sports daily L'Equipe. "If he is so fair play, he should go all the way.

New Delhi, Nov 9 : India's Somdev Devvarman dropped eights places to 124 in the Association of Tennis Professional (ATP) rankings released Monday.

Somdev lost the final of the Charlottesville Challenger to second-seeded American Kevin Kim Sunday.

Prakash Amritraj climbed 19 places to 204 in the charts.

In the Men's doubles, Mahesh Bhupathi and Leander Paes were unchanged at 7th and 8th places, respectively.

In the WTA list, Sania Mirza remained steady in the 58th spot in singles and 37th in doubles rankings.(IANS)

Charlottesville (Virginia), Nov 9 : India's Somdev Devvarman saved three match points but fell short against American Kevin Kim 4-6, 7-6 (10-8), 4-6 in the final of the $50,000 Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) Challenger tournament.

The Indian came back strongly after losing the first set. He saved three match points in the second set to draw level. But in the end Kim, ranked No. 87, managed to edge past Devvarman in the thrilling baseline slugfest here Sunday.

"It's disappointing to lose in the finals," Somdev said.

Hamburg  - Roger Federer enjoyed another week atop the men's tennis rankings issued on Monday by the ATP, while the man who beat him in the Basle final, Novak Djokovic, closed in on second place.

Federer took 10,340 points into this week's Paris Masters. Spain's Rafael Nadal has 8,845 points and the Serbian Djokovic is on 8,300 after beating Federer in three sets Sunday in his native Switzerland.

Reggio Calabria, Italy  - Flavia Pennetta sealed a second Fed Cup title for Italy 3-0 Sunday as she claimed the winning point of the weekend 7-5, 6-2 over American Melanie Oudin in the final.

Pennetta, first Italian woman to crack the world Top 10, wrapped up the second championship for the host in three years after a title in Belgium in 2006.

Italy was playing in a third final in the worldwide women's competition, the nation's first at home.

Bali, Indonesia - France's Aravane Rezai won her third title of the season 7-5 Sunday as injured Marion Bartoli quit their final at the Commonwealth Bank Tournament of Champions.

The top-seeded Bartoli could not go on after 62 minutes, losing the only set played on her first double fault. Before that point, she had her left thigh taped. After losing the set, she told the chair umpire she could not continue.

Bali, Indonesia  - Marion Bartoli had to fight to the finish while Aavane Rezai was untroubled as the French pair won through into the final of the Commonwealth Bank Tournament of Champions Saturday.

The top seed Bartoli was rolling to what seemed to be victory in well under an hour, but 39-year-old Japanese Kimiko Date Krumm suddenly came alive, saving a match point in the sixth game of the second set and breaking for 2-5.

Bali, Indonesia  - Two Frenchwomen, a Spaniard and Japan's evergreen 39-year-old  make up Saturday's semi-final field at the Commonwealth Bank Tournament of Champions.

Top seed Marion Bartoli and Gallic compatriot Aravane Rezai both moved into the last weekend of play as did Spain's Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez.

Bali, Indonesia  - Two Frenchwomen, a Spaniard and Japan's evergreen 39-year-old  make up Saturday's semi-final field at the Commonwealth Bank Tournament of Champions.

Top seed Marion Bartoli and Gallic compatriot Aravane Rezai both moved into the last weekend of play as did Spain's Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez.