After Radhika Tulpule had dumped the second seed yesterday, Bedi's 6-4, 6-3 victory over Dhawan has left the weakened lower half of the draw completely open. Only No 3 Arthi Venkatraman, a 6-1, 6-2 winner over Nischala Bola Reddy today, is left among the seeds after No 8 Simmi Rani was sent out in royal style by Sumitra Rao.

The others in the top half had easy wins, fourth seed Rushmi Chakravarthi, in particular, ensured no drama in her potentially exciting match-up against Janaki Krishnamoorthy. Rushmi won 6-0, 6-3 in 47 minutes.

Bedi could underline today's entry in her little diary even if playing Dhawan is all too frequent for the 16-year-old. The 12th standard student from Chandigarh, who puts down all her match results in her book and has all the relevant statistics at disposal, puts theirhead-to-head at 3-2 in Dhawan's favour.

Up 4-3 with a break in the fifth game of the second set, Bedi went down 15-40 on serve to relive memories of her loss to Dhawan in the Sriram Open where she squandered a lead in the decider to lose 6-7.

She fought back to save two break points and then went on to capitalise on Dhawan's weakening resolve by holding serve. Dhawan, winner of the $5000 ITF Masters in New Delhi in November last year, was not helped either by a double fault and a wayward forehand return on serve which presented Bedi with another break and her first win in a senior ITF event.

``I concentrated better today, which is normally my problem when playing her,'' said Bedi after her win. And in the process, the advocate's daughter also served a notice to her future opponents, the first of whom will be Padmapreetham Mahalingam in Round Two.

Results

Singles (first round): Rushmi Chakravarthi bt Janaki Krishnamoorthy 6-0, 6-3; SK Tara bt Geeta Manohar 6-4, 6-2; Harsimran Kaur Bedi btShruti Dhawan 6-4, 6-3; Gautham Sheetal bt Kalpita Raje 6-2, 6-0; Arthi Venkatraman bt Nischala Boda Reddy 6-1, 6-2; Nikhila Palat bt Stuti Smit 6-3, 6-2; Simmi Rani bt Sumitra Rao 7-5, 7-5.

Doubles (first round): Karishma Patel/Simmi Rani bt Nischala Reddy/Sandhya Kanury 7-5, 6-1; K Janaki/Radhika Tulpule bt Radhika Madhika/Sonal Phadke 6-4, 6-1; Harsimran Bedi/Nikita Bharadwaj bt Sricharanya Thyagarajan/Kalpita Raje 6-0, 7-6 (7-3); Tara Kanbargimath/Sumitra Rao bt Vishnupreetham/Padmapreetham Mahalingam 6-2, 6-2.