Winning senior nationals a dream come true: Rashmikaa

After national crown, city tennis player next targets on improving WAT and national ranking

Hyderabad: Promising tennis player from city Shrivalli Rashmikaa made it a hat-trick of national titles on Sunday when she downed top seed Vaidehi Choudhary from Gujarat to win the senior women’s national crown in Gurugram.

The talented 19-year-old youngster had won two back-to-back nationals in the under-18 category last year and now she pocketed the senior women’s crown with a thumping victory. However, the second seeded player said she never thought she could win the crown before entering the tournament. “It is like a dream come true. Whenever I saw the names of the winners on the board at the tournament, I wanted my name there. It was like a dream and winning at this age is very satisfying,” she said.

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Rashmikaa, who graduated to senior category recently, is playing only her second tournament in the women’s category and this win would give her a lot of confidence going ahead. Having returned to action recently from coronavirus-induced one year hiatus, the youngster had played two ITF tournaments in Pune and New Delhi and an AITA 1 lakh tournament where she lost in the final.

However, she said she had no target in mind entering the championship. “I didn’t think I would win the title. I went in with zero expectations. I wanted to perform well and show my best tennis. That helped me actually to win the final. I have beaten some good players in the run up to the final. Before the final, I thought I would not want to take any nerves and play point by point and see how it goes. Even after winning, it took me some time to realise it,” she revealed.

Rashmikaa, who is ranked 15 in AITA rankings hopes to be among top 3 by yearend and this win would propel her to top 10. “My aim is to achieve top 500 ranking in women in the world. Right now, my WTA ranking is 1100. And I want to be among the top 3 in national rankings,” she said.

She also revealed that the lockdown didn’t affect her game at all. “I was in constant touch with my psychologist and in fact the period made me calmer. I am calmer on the court now. And when I started training, I was back to my full form within a week’s time,” added the youngster.

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