Mumbai: Vani Kapoor continued her rich form with a opening round 75 that gave her the lead at the end of the first day of the Usha Western India Ladies Open Amateur at the BPGC in Mumbai.

But the surprise of the day was Gursimar Badwal, who carded 76 and occupied the second place, one shot ahead of Gurbani Singh, who is making a charge on the IGU’s Ladies Tour Order of Merit. Raksha Phadke and Amrita Anand were tied for fourth place with 78 each, while Aditi Ashok, expected to challenge Vani for the honours started off badly with a 79, the same as Mehar Atwal, Vidushi Sinha and Amandeep Drall.

Though Vani led the field, she found the going tough as Birdies were hard to come by and the course played difficult. Vani had bogeys on the third and seventh to turn in two-over. She had two more bogeys and a double bogey and one birdie on the par-5 18th on the back nine.

Usha are supporting the four regional events, Southern India, the Northern India, Western and Eastern India and the and the All India Amateur events on the IGU Ladies circuit. Usha also supports Junior golf with tournaments at Delhi, Bangalore and Chandigarh and conduct the Junior Training Programme at the DGC since 2006.