Ankita Raina emerges champion in USD 25,000 event in Singapore

01/20/2019

Ankita Raina won her first singles trophy of 2019 as she defeated top seed Arantxa Rus in straight sets in the final of the USD 25,000 event in Singapore. Ankita defeated four seeded players in the tournament before beating the Dutch player 6-3, 6-2 in one hour and 23 minutes to clinch the title.

The Indian tennis ace had come into the tournament after participating in the qualification round of the Australian Open and she displayed some good performance on the court. Starting with eighth seeded Lesley Kerkhove from the Netherlands in the second round, she defeated four seeded players including the top seed Rus in the final match. She had wins over Uzbekistan’s Sabina Sharipova and third seed Conny Perrin from Switzerland.

“I’ve been working on my serve for a long while now and I think it’s starting to help. I also feel there’s more power in the strokes. It definitely helped playing the Grand Slam as the first tournament of the year. It gave a lot of positivity and self belief,” Ankita told PTI.

“Even though I was a bit disappointed that I didn’t qualify for the Australian Open since I expected that but I was grateful that I had reached where once I used to imagine I would be playing.”

Ankita had earlier bagged a bronze medal at the Asian Games in Indonesia last year and this would be her fourth title at the USD 25k level.

“This tournament, even though it was 25k event, was a tough competition as all the qualifying players from Melbourne were here and also the last (in entry) was 250th ranked. I played seeded players from the second round itself and saw a lot of things that I was working on with my coach (Hemant Bendre) a few days ago. There were a few things that I needed to work on mentally which I am happy I could work with my coach as he was around before the tournament. He eventually left after the first round match due to other commitments back home,” the 26-year-old added.

“Also the things I am working for the last six months are paying off. In fact, we were working on it in the Australian open and will continue.”

Ankita is scheduled to play a couple of more tournaments before the Fed Cup, starting in the first week of February in Kazakhstan.