Ankita Raina enters 2nd round of French Open qualifiers

Paris, Sep 23 India's Ankita Raina earned a hard-fought win against Jovana Jovic of Serbia to progress to the second round of the French Open qualifiers.

On Tuesday, Ankita defeated Jovana 6-4, 4-6, 6-4 in match that lasted two hours and 47 minutes. The 27-year-old will next take on Japan's Kurumi Nara, seeded 22nd.

Ankita, who is India's top-ranked woman tennis player, has not gone beyond the second round at the Grand Slam qualifiers and she would need to win two more matches to make it to the main draw of the clay court grand slam.

Earlier on Monday, Prajnesh Gunneswaran had gone past Turkey's Cem Ilkel to advance to the second round of the men's singles qualifying event. Prajnesh had defeated Ilkel 6-3, 6-1 after losing his service early in his opening round of the qualifier. He is slated to face Australia's Aleksandar Vukic on Wednesday.

Sumit Nagal and Ramkumar Ramanathan have, however, bowed out of the competition after losing their respective first round matches of the qualifying event.

The main draw of the grand slam is slated to start from September 27.

( With inputs from IANS )