Melbourne, Jan 12 (PTI) India's top-ranked women's player Ankita Raina moved to the final round of the Australian Open Qualifiers with a gutsy three-set win over world number 118 Katarina Zavatska but it was curtains for Ramkumar Ramanathan in the men's singles.

In the women's singles qualifiers being held in Dubai, Ankita overcame a second-set lapse to win 6-2 2-6 6-3 in the second round against the Ukrainian.

The match lasted two hours and 20 minutes.

It is Ankita's sixth attempt to crack the singles main draw of a Grand Slam and she is now just one win away from creating history.

Only Nirupama Vaidyanathan and Sania Mirza have competed in the women's singles main draw of a Grand Slam from India till date.

Nirupama had reached the second round of the Australian Open in 1998 while Sania quit competing in the singles category in 2012.

In the men's singles being held in Doha, Ramkumar lost his second round 3-6 2-6 to Chinese Taipei's Tung-Lin Wu in 69 minutes.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)