Ankita Raina, India’s top-ranked women’s singles player, isn’t entirely sure how she ended up crying after beating 2011 US Open champion Samantha Stosur of Australia at the ITF Challenger on the clay courts of Anning, China last Wednesday.
“It was like time paused and I was just trying to take in what had just happened,” remembers the 178th-ranked Raina of what she calls the biggest win of her career. “Then I saw her approaching the net, so I quickly went to shake hands and she said, ‘good match.’
“Usually, sometimes players don’t even shake hands properly after losing. I think that matters and tells a lot about her as well. And after the handshake, when I went to my chair, I had a flashback in front of my eyes of all these years and had a rush of all the emotions and so I started weeping.”
It was a win that took a toll on Raina’s reserves of energy; the 7-5, 2-6, 7-5 win came in two hours, 51 minutes, and left her jaded for the following day’s match against local player Zhang Kai Lin, ranked 31 places below Raina. Zhang won two tie-breaks after conceding the first set 6-1, and that match took close to three hours again.
Raina, however, prefers to see the positive side of her recent run of form, which has seen her emulate Nirupama Vaidyanathan and Sania Mirza as the only Indian women to be ranked inside the top 200 in tennis.
“I think the key here is that I’ve started believing more in the work put in by me and my team. I have faith in our practice and training,” says Raina, who had troubled the big-serving former world no.4 Stosur in their only previous meeting in Dubai last year.
“Whatever my coach [Hemant Bendrey] asks me to do, I do it with firm belief that this will improve my performance. When I played her [Stosur] in Dubai, my coach was there for the match since he was travelling with me. So, he already knew about her game and also had an idea about her recent matches. When I was getting ready to return Stosur’s serve, I knew somewhere inside that I’ve put in the effort and I was sure of making good returns.”
It has been a good year for Raina, with a singles title in Singapore in January, and a runner-up finish in Istanbul a little earlier in April. Patience is an advantage, as is the support in all parts of the world from the Indian diaspora.
“Not only do Indians come to watch matches, but they also bring us Indian food or take us for dinner where they serve home-cooked Indian food, which is really helpful, especially when we are alone,” she says. “After losing in the Australian Open, the next day on my birthday, an Indian family invited me to their house, where they had a big Shiva temple. So, in Australia, performing pooja (a ritual in honour of the Gods) on my birthday was an unexpected blessing for me.”
An Asian Games medallist in 2018, Raina has her targets set on the Olympics, where qualification will depend on an improved singles ranking. Raina won bronze in Palembang, with China’s Wang Qiang’s gold winning her the continental spot in women’s singles for the Olympics. Five other spots will go to continental qualifiers. The host nation Japan and a legacy gold medallist or Grand Slam champion will get one further spot each.
That will leave the top 56 ranked players in with a chance of qualifying, with a ceiling of four players per association. Raina says she will “leave no stone unturned” in achieving her dream of qualifying for Tokyo 2020, but insists she will take events as they come.
“There’s no limit to patience because as much as you have it, it’s really helpful because we compete day in and day out and the result is not something in your hand,” says Raina, who unwinds through her busy schedule by watching programmes on her laptop, listening to music, reading or just speaking to family. “Sometimes you play really good but lose, and other times you play awful but you still win, so in both situations, we just need to take the positives regardless of the result and move ahead.
“I think that’s the lesson I’ll take from Anning.”