Tennis: India's Karman Kaur Thandi finishes runner-up in W60 Saskatoon Challenger

SASKATOON: India's Karman Kaur Thandi finished runner-up in the women's doubles event of the ITF W60 Saskatoon Challenger tennis tournament, here on Sunday.

The Indian paired with Canadian Stacey Fung in the 60000-dollar tournament. The pair lost to USA's Abigail Renchell and Alana Smith in a thrilling final in a super tiebreaker 6-4, 4-6, 7-10.

Karman and Stacey had earlier beaten the pair of Savanna Ly-Nguyen of Vietnam and Martina Okalova of Slovakia 6-2, 6-2 in Round 1.

The pair created an upset in the quarterfinals, beating the No.1 seeded pair of Victoria Hu of USA and Renata Zarazua of Mexico in straight sets 7-6, 6-4. In the semifinals, they beat another American pair Carmen Corley and Ivana Corley 6-4, 5-7, 11-9 before going down fighting in the finals.

RoundGlass Tennis Academy athlete Karman is currently 233rd in the WTA singles rankings and is the second-ranked women's player in the country. Her current doubles ranking is 702. This is her second runner-up finish in recent months as she had also finished second in the W60 Sumter Palmetto Pro Open held in the US.

She has also been included in the Indian squad for the Asian Games to be held in Hangzhou, China.

Renowned coach and Technical Director of RoundGlass Tennis Academy, Aditya Sachdeva and his team have been training Karman at the Academy.

"Karman has been performing well in the ITF circuit in the last couple of months. She is showing good signs of progress towards her best form, and it will benefit Team India in the upcoming Asian Games. Her performance in Saskatoon is proof of her perseverance and hard work," said coach Sachdeva about Karman's performance.