Why Tara Iyer lost so early in the Pune Challenger

In case you were stumped by Tara Iyer's first round loss at the ITF $25,000 Pune Challenger this week, here's the explanation.

The 19-year-old was playing after a week of "not practising due to an abdominal pull". And that reflected in her 4-6, 2-6 loss to fellow Indian Rushmi Chakravarthi.

"I still wasn't able to serve normally and was a bit rusty," Iyer told the Indian Tennis Blog.

"Anyway, I'm doing rehab and hopefully it should be okay in a week or so."

Interestingly, Iyer also lost to Chakravarthi in the second round of the Pune event in 2006.

But this year, the fourth-seeded Iyer was the highest ranked Indian in the draw and had been expected to sail past Chakravarthi - who at 472 is ranked more than a hundred places below Iyer (368) on the WTA list.

Iyer, number 3 in India after Sania Mirza and Sunitha Rao, is enjoying her best year on the circuit so far having achieved a career high rank of 350 in September 2007.