Nirupama wins doubles title

NEW DELHI, APRIL 30. Nirupama Vaidyanathan continued with her fine run winning her second successive doubles title in two weeks in the $75,000 ITF women's circuit tennis tournament in Bradenton, US, on Sunday.

Nirupama with Melissa Middleton of the US beat the top-seeded Janet Lee of Chinese Taipei and Samantha Reeves of the US 6-4, 6- 2 in the final of Florida event to share $4,400 and add 54 WTA points. The unseeded Indo-US pair had beaten Allison Bradshaw and Marissa Irvin of the US 6-4, 4-6, 7-6 (7-4) in the semifinals. It was a revenge victory for Nirupama who had lost to the seventh- seeded Marissa in straight sets in the first round of singles.

Nirupama was suffering from jet lag following her flight from Vietnam, where she had won the doubles title with Manisha Malhotra, apart from making the singles semifinals in the $25,000 tournament. She was thus not ready to pose a strong challenge in singles, especially after the tough stint in the Asia-Oceania Fed Cup competition in Kao Hsiung, Chinese Taipei, the week before the tournament in Ho Chi Minh City.

In Bradenton, Nirupama and Melissa beat Jane Chi and Jean Okada of the US 6-1, 6-4 in the quarterfinals, after the latter had upset the second seeds Evgenia Kouvlikovskaya of Russia and Jolene Watanabe of the US in the first round.

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