Ankita Raina emerges from shadows to clinch first major title

Express News Service

CHENNAI: One of the most oft-asked questions in Indian women’s tennis over the last six years or so has been ‘who after Sania Mirza?’ On Friday, Ankita Raina once again put her hands up to say she has all the right tools at her disposal to eventually occupy centre stage. Raina, with her partner, Kamilla Rakhimova, won her first-ever WTA Tour-level title, the Phillip Island Trophy. The unseeded pair beat Anna Blinkova and Anastasia Potapova 2-6, 6-4, 10-7. 

While the quality of opponents wasn’t always great — it is, after all, being held concurrently to the Australian Open — this is another significant first for the Indian, who has enjoyed a handy last 12-18 months. For starters, her new doubles ranking is likely to be No 95, a career-high. In an Olympic year, it’s likely to come in extremely handy.

Earlier this week, the 28-year-old also picked up her first Tour-level singles main draw win. At the Australian Open less than two weeks earlier, she made her maiden Major appearance, partnering Mihaela Buzarnescu. Just before lockdown last year, she inspired the Indian team to the Fed Cup playoffs, with a series of wins in both singles and doubles. What’s led to Raina’s rapid improvement in ranking as well as her results over the last 18 months or so? “I wouldn’t say it’s just the last 18 months or two years,” says India’s Fed Cup coach, Ankita Bhambri. “She has constantly worked on her game and I’m not at all surprised by the results she is having now.

“Just the way she carries herself on and off the court, she doesn’t get carried away. She has the same mentality, irrespective of whether she has a match point or is trying to save one. She is the epitome of hard work.” 

That is true. Even as several athletes the world over endured a difficult lockdown last year, Raina buckled down to find marginal ways. She enrolled in online classes apart from analysing old videos of herself to see where she could work to further polish her game.

“I was initially doing small International Tennis Federation courses,” she had told this daily then. “Apart from that, there was this workshop youth 2.0 on Zoom for three days. There was another three-day course by ‘Art of Living’. I have also been watching videos of old matches.”

As soon as the sport reopened, she was off, trying to put the things she had learned into practice. Even if the performances did not get the results she was after, that changed after a few tournaments. At Dubai in December, she won an ITF $100,000 doubles event with Ekaterine Gorgodze. She followed that up by reaching the last round of the qualifying event to the Australian Open.

The next question to ask is whether she can compete in both singles and doubles at a high level. Bhambri says she can. “There shouldn’t be any problem. In fact, I would say her net game has improved since she started playing doubles.” 

Just before the 2018 Asian Games bronze medallist left for Australia, Raina told TNIE of a few goals for 2021: main draw Slam appearances in singles and breaching the top-100 mark. 

She is well on her way to fulfilling both those goals ahead of schedule.