Bengaluru: Sahaja Yamalapalli's opening round campaign at the KPB Trust ITF Women's Open W100 on Tuesday bore a stark resemblance to her round 1 contest a year ago at the same event.

Both were played on court 1 of the SM Krishna Tennis Stadium here, both were three-set encounters against higher-ranked opponents and in both matches, India's top-ranked female singles player began on a high, lost her way in between only to fight back and clinch a victory.

On a sunny yet pleasant afternoon in Cubbon Park, world No. 416 Sahaja was once again tested and pushed to the brink, this time by 306-ranked Dayeon Back of Korea, before the Indian churned out a 6-2, 1-6, 6-2 win to advance to the second round of the premier ITF tournament.

Capitalising on another break point in the fifth, Sahaja held all her service games to race away with the first set. The ball striking, however, which was free-flowing in the opening set quickly began to desert the 25-year-old home girl in the second. Unforced errors and Dayeon running to successfully return every ball meant that the Korean 24-year-old clinched the second set to get back into the match.

Trading two breaks each in the third, Sahaja found her missing rhythm when the scores were tied at 2-2 at one set apiece. With the forehand packing a punch and an extra kick in the serve, Sahaja dominated to claim four games in a row to close out the match in two hours and 18 minutes.

"Yeah, well, it started off well. In the second, I mean, I was fighting but I wasn't feeling the ball very well in the second. Maybe I was being too passive," said Sahaja in a post-match conversation.

"I wasn't letting my arm go through and that was causing me to make mistakes. But I kind of regrouped and that helped," she added while sharing that she felt physically a lot better than she has in the past few tournaments where Sahaja claimed she wasn't at her healthy best.