CHENNAI: THINGS are slowly falling in place for Vaishnavi Adkar. After jumping up the ranks by almost 400 places, India’s No 1 women tennis player won her first WTA 250 level match against Great Britain’s Jodie Burrage on a clear Tuesday evening at the SDAT Tennis Stadium, Chennai.
In a topsy-turvy round of 32 match that lasted for 2 hours and 47 minutes, Adkar grew into the game after a slow start. Her well-placed forehand returns got the crowd going but she was visibly frustrated after missing a few open court chances as she put them wide. But one important aspect she has greatly improved on is to create rallies and wait for her opponent to err. Unlike her previous games where she tried to take the plunge on chances, she has shown patience in her games, waiting for the right opportunity.
Jodie was aggressive on the day and tried to keep the intensity high. Adkar, initially struggling with the returns, knew she had to keep the pressure on her. “The balls are pretty heavy and especially with the humidity, they get fluffy pretty quick. It's sort of a struggle to keep going for the serves, but at the same time she was playing really aggressive and attacking every chance that she was getting. So for me, it was just important to try and put back an extra ball and just sort of keep that pressure on her and (let her know) that she's not getting any easy points either. That somewhat worked for me later on where I was trying to stay in the point however I can, because my coach keeps telling me tennis is never black or white, It's mostly gray. It doesn't have to be perfect all the time, so I was just trying to make her play an extra ball,” Adkar said after her match.
Last year, she saw her chances of victory against Olympic medallist Donna Vekic disappear as both struggled in the Chennai heat. Months after her defeat, she joined Rohan Bopanna’s Tennis Academy in Bengaluru and seemed to have learnt a lot from there. “I definitely feel more confident, I feel stronger physically and mentally. I feel like I'm in a better place because this year I've had a couple of wins, but I've also had a lot of close losses, which have made me realize a lot of things about my game. The most important thing for me was to just keep working on those things and it is starting to show in my game because of the work that we put in. I'm really happy with the progress,” she added.
While she may have a few areas to work on in the near future, Tuesday’s win could be a sign of what’s to come. Over to the pre-quarterfinals.
Maaya mounts comeback
Tamil Nadu's young tennis prodigy Maaya Rajeshwaran Revathi also mounted a comeback victory against Polish eighth seed Katarzyna Kawa 6-4, 2-6, 7-6. The 17-year-old began on a good note, but lost steam in the second set. However, she forced a tiebreaker in the deciding set and won 7-6. She will face Weronika Falkowska in the round of 16. She continues her good run, which began in Portugal when she won her first WTA level tournament in Lagos, Portugal.
Results (select): Maaya Rajeshwaran R bt K Kawa 6-4, 2-6, 7-6, V Adkar bt J Burrage 3-6 6-3 7-5, R Montgomery bt P Udvardy 6-4 1-6 6-1, W Falkowska bt L Fruhvirtova 7-6(3) 6-4, J Tjen bt K Hui 6-1 6-2.