Maharashtra's Banthia, Mihika lift singles trophies

PUNE: Maharashtra players Siddanth Banthia and Mihika Yadav clinched the boys and girls' singles trophies in the MSLTA ITF Junior tennis championships at the Shiv Chhatrapati sports complex in Mhalunge-Balewadi on Saturday.
With the wins here, Both Banthia and Mihika, who are part of the MSLTA vision program and supported by Lakshya-Bharat Forge, confirmed their spots in the Junior Australian Open 2017 main draws.
Banthia broke Bikaner boy Aditya Vashistha in the first game and went to win 6-4, 7-6 (2) and claim his first Grade 3 ITF junior. This year, Banthia has already won Grade 2, Grade 4 and Grade 5 events along and the Under-16 national title.
In the girls event, second seeded Mihika claimed the girls' singles title ousting third seeded Korean Sohyun Park 6-0, 6-7(3), 6-3 to win her third title of the year. Earlier this year, Mihika had won two titles in Malaysia.
Sixteen-year-old Mihika, who had reached the finals $10,000 ITF women's event at the same venue in October this year, will move to top-60 in the ITF junior rankings.
The winners got 60 ITF points, while the runners up had to be content with 45 points.
The winners received the MV Deo memorial trophy from MSLTA secretary Sunder Iyer and organizing secretary Kaustubh Shah. ITF supervisor S Vaishali and chief umpire Pravin Zite were present too.
Results:
Finals (singles, boys): Siddhant Banthia (Ind) [1] bt Aditya Vashistha (Ind) 6-4, 7-6(2)
Girls: Mihika Yadav (Ind) (2) bt Sohyun Park (Kor) (3) 6-0, 6-7(3), 6-3.