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New Delhi, January 20
India's No. 1 woman tennis player Ankita Raina won her first singles title of the season and eighth overall after trampling top seed Arantxa Rus in straight sets in the final of the $25,000 event in Singapore.
World No. 203 Ankita demolished world No. 122 and the Dutch top seed 6-3 6-2 in one hour and 23 minutes. Ankita toppled four seeded players in the tournament starting with Dutch eighth seed Lesley Kerkhove in the second round.
The 26-year-old followed that up with wins over second seed Uzbek Sabina Sharipova and third seed Conny Perrin from Switzerland. The 50 points earned from the title triumph are likely to catapult Ankita to a career-high singles ranking of 168 on Monday. “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 (Australian Open) as the first tournament of the year. It gave a lot of positivity and self belief,” Ankita said.
“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,” she added.
It is Ankita’s fourth title at the $25K level and the others were at the $10,000 level. Last year, she won two titles — Gwalior (25K) and Nonthaburi (25K). The Asian Games bronze medallist said the changes made to the circuit have made even the $25K tournaments much tougher. Ankita will play two more tournaments before gearing up for the Fed Cup, starting in the first week of February at Astana, Kazakhstan. — PTI
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 Australian Open as the first tournament of the year — Ankita Raina
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