My original Sports India.com onsite report:

Playing a qualifier in the first rounds is always a tough deal during the first rounds of a future: they are more used to the conditions on court, had some matches - and experience. So though ET's (what a shortcut for her name, sounds that Alien-like to me...) ranking is just above 1000, you should not underestimate Ankita's task to today against the British left-handed qualifier. Ankita started putting ET under pressure from the very beginning and was - let me tell you this in advance - with break points in all first five game served by the British. For example, in the firt game, our girl had three break points, one at 30:40, two at Ad out each. But while Ankita was strong on deuce-court served points, she had very serious problems with ET's spinful left-handed Ad-court serves, which were definitely ET's strongest weapons today - apart from her ability to return every shot and let her opponent run all the time. But Ankita was definitely the more skillful player all over the match and gave ET a fantastic fight. But back to the match now: Ankita failed to convert one of the three break points in the first game, but had no problems at own serve afterwards. The key fact was: will Anki be able to break her opponent? In the third game, she did, after ET had the chance to win the game thrice (40:30 and Ad in twice). Though Ankita was deuced three times in the next game, there were no major problems to win that one, so our girl lead 3-1 after four games. Everything seemed to be easy: after ET tied the points to 30-30 after she was 0-30 behind, Ankita had one break point at 30-40 and ET shot the ball out of bounds in that points. But there was a very major fact in that game today called luck - the linesman called it in, so the score was deuce. Ankita could not convert another break point, whereas ET managed to win the game after the third Ad in situation. 1 out of 6 break points converted so far by Ankita - it looked like a very bad percentage, but I have to repeat that these ET ad court serves where really tough. Another wrong call made by the referee in the next game turned the game: Ankita's serve was definitely in, but as long as the umpire says it was out, it is a tough situation to argue... To be honest, Ankita gave ET the opportunity to come back in the game by three double faults, but this call caused a second serve at break point (after Anki saved a first one), which was converted by the British girl. 3-3 score now. Ankita could not convert another break point in the next game, but won her own serve very easy in the eigth one - 4-4 now. ET was to serve, Ankita increased pressure again: 15-30, 30-30, 30-40, that was the scoreline of the ninth game. The Indian could not convert the first break point, but succeeded in a second one at Ad out - 5-4 for Ankita, serving for the set now. But the tenth game was the only really disappointing one today. Ankita struggled with her serve, started with a double fault and needed to take the second serve in the next two points - ET took a great advantage of this situation and was 0-40 in the lead. The second break point tied the score again - and as ET did not face a break point for the first time in the eleventh game and Ankita clean-swept her opponent afterwards, it was tie-breaker-time. Not that surprisingly, the tie-break was no tough task for Ankita - if you win many of your games easily and cause much trouble on the opponent's ones, it looks like a good chance for you to win. Two mini-breaks by Ankita, who just conceeded one made her lead 4:2 at court change. After the court change, she broke the ET served points twice to win 7:2 in the tie-breaker. Let me add some stats about that set: the match clock was already on 1:23 hours, when Ankita won it. Another key stat was, that only 46 of all 115 points played have been decided while Ankita was serving - the rest on her opponent's serve - that really shows how much pressure ET had to face - and was able to stand for a long time. Another great fact of Ankita's game was that she won 17 of 20 first serve points at own serve in the first set - a really fantastic percentage! Though there were still many long rallies, Ankita controlled the match much better in second set. Nevertheless, it took her some 50 minutes to win it - but first of all, the net chord hit by her opponent and secondly, quite a large number of strange calls against her forced her to need much time for that set than needed. For example, ET deuced her in the first game (AK to serve) by two net chords. Ankita had no major problems in second set on own serve at the beginning and won her games quite easily, while she took a 0:40 situation in the fourth game to break ET and take the 3-1 lead. After two more easy wins for the server, Ankita was 0:30 (of course, by net chord...) and 15:40 behind at 4-2, own serve, but saved those two break points as well as a third one following at Ad out. She took her first Ad in point and lead 5-2 now. In the eigth (and last) game of that set, ET took profit of a very wrong call again - but instead of winning the game while leading 40-30, she missed an easy shot and was called for ball abuse as she shot the ball out of court. Deuce now, two more to go to finish it off for Ankita - and that's exactly what our girl did. Though the first set of this 2:10 hours match were much closer than they needed to be in Anki's point of view, there was no need to critize her for that. Ankita showed a great fight and looked like the better player all the match. Even in the worst situation, she kept on fighting. On the other hand, ET is surely not gifted with powerful strokes that much, but is a tough opponent due to her immense fighting spirit, quite a handsome play and her incredible leftie-serves.

Here are the (unofficial) Tennis-Foto.de statistics of the match: