Ankita Raina thread

[PKBasu]

Fantastic win for Ankita:

WTA Korea Open, Seoul

[Q2] 12-Ankita Raina (IND,325) d. (3) Valentini Grammatikopolou (GRE,160) 76(4) 67(4) 60

[PKBasu]

In R1 of doubles, Ankita plays against her partner from last week (and several previous weeks):

[R1] Ankita Raina/Peangtarn Plipuech (IND/THA) vs. Astra Sharma/Rosalie VanDerHoek (AUS/NED)

[suresh]

Ankita is like a phoenix, rising from the ashes that we mentally put her into after her dismal show in Chennai. Of course, no one here doubts her heart. She needs to win at least one round here! Go Ankita.

[PKBasu]

I think in Chennai, she ran into an unusual player whom she was totally unprepared to counter. A coach should have prepared her better for what to expect. She had far more power in her strokes than I remembered before, but was making a ridiculous number of unforced errors. Against a more normal player (giving her reasonable pace to work with), Ankita must have come into her own.

The one problem we have seen with Ankita is that she gets pretty badly beaten by players in the top-80 or so. She does quite well against players who are ranked in the 100-200 range, including players who are on the wane after glittering careers. Her best wins were against Sara Errani (the 2012 USO singles semifinalist who had a career-high singles rank of 5) around 1.5 years ago (when Errani was 33 years old, and ranked just inside top-100; she is now 115); and of course, the win against 2012 USO champion (and 2011 FO finalist) Sam Stosur in April 2019 (also when Stosur was ranked in the 90s).

[PKBasu]

[R1] (Q) Ankita Raina (IND, 325) vs. Maddison Inglis (AUS, 129)

[sameerph]

Today's win was first against a top 200 player since March 2021 and first time she made WTA main draw since February 2021. I watched first 2 sets of today's match and accuracy on her shots was back to a large extent. She was still making a few errors but they were far lesser compared to last week in Chennai and also some of her earlier matches i saw from Britain. So,her game is still there for Ankita if she gets it all together which is good to see,

She is not on schedule for Monday. So, looks like she will play her first round on Tuesday.

[Dinesh]

Ankita gets her second WTA main draw win today. Beat Maddy Inglis 4-6 7-5 6-1 Moves up to top-270 in the live rankings. Will play Lin Zhu in the second round which might be tough.

[PKBasu]

Hana Bank Korea Open 2022

[R1] Q-Ankita Raina (IND, 325) d. Maddison Inglis (AUS, 129) 46 75 61

Ankita was down a match-point at 46 45 30-40 (on Inglis's serve), but fought back to take the second set. Then she raced away to a 4-0 lead in the final set, and closed it out in style.
Her live singles ranking jumps to 269! Emphatically back as India #1.

Tough R2 match against 4th seeded Lin Zhu (CHN, 70).

[suresh]

Go Ankita!

[prashanthm]

Wow! Fantastic comeback from Ankita with couple of strong wins after last week's disappointment....

[prasen9]

Live ranking 270.

[sameerph]

What a performance by Ankita this week so far this week. Out of nowhere, she has beaten players ranked 160 and 129 in last 2 days when she was struggling to put aside players ranked in 500's and all thru the year. She needed to be pushed out from India #1 spot to get so motivated it seems.

Very tough match against world#70 Chinese for Ankita against whom she has a 1-4 head to head since 8 years back when they first met in Indonesia 25K final in 2014. 3 of those 4 losses were in 3 sets though. Hope Ankita can put up a fight again. Her match should be around 2 pm India time Wednesday and her doubles R1 is later in the day.

Jay, are you in Seoul ?

[jayakris]

Yes I arrived in Korea yesterday morning, but no use... I was hoping that Ankita's match would be after 4 pm, so I could somehow get there after my early afternoon meeting. The match was at noon. Luckily Ankita didn't need my support (like when Sania upset Hingis at Seoul back in 2006. I happened to be visiting, and I shocked her with a bunch of loud "Go Sania" screams as she didn't know any Indians would be around! "what the hell are you doing here?" asked Sania after the comeback win on Hingis. haha ).

No such luck today either. I am having lunch in Suwon with a University chancellor today (so I can't ask for a postponement) and can't get to Seoul till about 5 pm ... Looks like Ankita's R2 match will be over by then.

But really... what an unexpected run from Ankita here! So glad to see that she is not going away just yet.

I hope the wins by Karman and Ankita would give other Indian women players a bit of a boost in self-belief.

(@Sameer, the match today isn't at 2 pm IST. It is at around 2 pm in Seoul, so it will be about 10:30 am in India)

[PKBasu]

Tame 16 36 loss for Ankita today against Lin Zhu. There was some fight from Ankita in the second set, but she couldn't capitalise on game point for 4-3, got broken instead, and it ended quickly thereafter.

Doubles R1 coming up for Ankita shortly.

[PKBasu]

Bad day for Ankita, she and her Thai partner lost 36 36 in the doubles R1 to VanDerHoek/AstraSharma.
Astra lost in R1 of singles, after qualifying in.