Billie Jean King Cup: India lose to New Zealand, miss out on promotion

India women's tennis team lost to New Zealand and missed out on promotion from the Asia Oceania Group I stage for the third straight time at the Billie Jean Kings Cup tie in Changsha, China on Saturday.

Rutuja Bhosale continued her winning run in the tournament to earn the first points on board for India but then two consecutive losses, first for Ankita Raina in singles and then Ankita and Prarthana Thombare in doubles, gave India a 1-2 defeat to New Zealand.

Rutuja clinched a straight-set (6-2, 7-6(5)) victory against a way lower-ranked youngster Monique Barry of New Zealand to start the match. This wasn't an easy match for her as she was struggling to hold on to her serve in the second set.

But, in the final moments, she used her experience to claim the victory after Barry made a service error on the match point. This was the fourth consecutive victory for Rutuja, who completed the tournament with a 100% winning record.

Ankita Raina followed suit but had a way tougher opponent in front as she faced world no.169 Lulu Sun, who was coming here in the tie with superb form and maintained it here and outclassed Raina with a comfortable (6-2, 6-0) win.

Ankita had a disastrous tournament as she lost her fourth consecutive match in the women's singles category including three bagels, two against China's Qinwen Zheng and one against Sun.

Ankita then partnered with Prarthana Thombare in the women's doubles like the previous two ties but this time she couldn't find a win for her team and lost in a straight set (1-6, 5-7) to New Zealand's top pairing Erin Routliffe and Paige Hourigan.

In the second set, the Indian pair made an excellent comeback from 1-5 down to level the scores at 5-5 with the help of two back-to-back double breaks, but in the twelfth game, on Thombare's serve, the Kiwis found the winner to clinch the tie with a breakpoint.

India finished third in their pool and missed out on promotion to the Billie Jean King Cup Playoffs for the third straight year that too on the virtue of match points as South Korea and India has the same number of wins but Korea progressed to the next round with better match difference.