Maaya Rajeshwaran Revathi thread

[ericcw]

Before winning women's GS, look forward to her doing really well at junior GS. Going from junior success to women's success is going to require coaching and resources that have to align for her to get there.

Isn't Rafa Nadal already taking care of her with a dedicated coach?

[prasen9]

The coach is visiting with her to help out in a few tournaments in India. I do not know if the arrangement is to accompany her for every tournament every year.

[arjun2761]

To be honest, I expect that she will get the tennis skills coaching to improve. Not as sure of the physical development training as Indian players are often culturally not inclined to put in the intense amount of work that is needed to excel there. Therefore, it isn't a given that an Indian junior will naturally improve with age on the physical dimension even if their tennis improves.

Some like Somdev found that development in college, some like Sumit and Yuki improved relatively later in their careers and were by then injury prone.

[ericcw]

Does Rafa Nadal academy not emphasize and enforce rigourous fitness regimen that they have for their other players?

Probably Basu can suggest them today not to skip fitness specifically for Maaya only.

[arjun2761]

You can't force anyone to do anything that they don't want to do. Instead they will end up doing just enough to get by. Unfortunately, in a world wide sport like tennis, you really have be elite physically and not just do what your coach forces you to do.

Yuki spent time in Bolletieri and was a junior GS champion at 16 but never put in the physical work to become elite. I am pretty sure it wasn't because no one asked him to put the work in.

[jayakris]

I changed the title of the thread, dropping the Revathi at the end. That is the mother's name and should not be there really, as confirmed from the parents by PKB today. Thanks, PKB.

[jayakris]

Though we have not locked the thread, exercising our self-granted discretionary authority, I want to leave it for the record here that we Mods are yet to officially approve this thread. As such, it remains unauthorized due to the thread-starting criteria being unmet as yet. No punitive actions are envisaged against the thread-starter for the transgression, but we reserve our rights to initiate the same as and when warranted

Mod, Jay

[jayakris]

Yuki spent time in Bolletieri and was a junior GS champion at 16 but never put in the physical work to become elite. I am pretty sure it wasn't because no one asked him to put the work in.

I don't know if that isn't too harsh on Yuki, but anyway, physical work does not seem to be an issue with Maaya. It is clear from pictures that she has been hitting the gym, and it can only get better with guidance from the Spanish academy now.

[Atithee]

I don't know if that isn't too harsh on Yuki, but anyway, physical work does not seem to be an issue with Maaya. It is clear from pictures that she has been hitting the gym, and it can only get better with guidance from the Spanish academy now.

I thought you’ve been dead set against Spanish academies’ worth for Indian players, Jay. Case in point has been Ramkumar R, I think that you have ranted against numerous times.

[SaniaFan]

I changed the title of the thread, dropping the Revathi at the end. That is the mother's name and should not be there really, as confirmed from the parents by PKB today. Thanks, PKB.

But isn't that her full name i.e, keeping both father and mother's name. Wonder why you dropped only mother's name but kept father's name.
I think PKBs point was that they kept her calling Revathi though her given name is Maaya.

[Dinesh]

I changed the title of the thread, dropping the Revathi at the end. That is the mother's name and should not be there really, as confirmed from the parents by PKB today. Thanks, PKB.

What if Maaya wanted to carry both her parents’ names and registered as such when she set up her ITF account? I know we live in a male chauvinistic world but as a young kid growing up in a small town in Tamil Nadu, I always wondered why I had to add my dad’s name as my last name when my mom was the bread winner and took care of us the most (no love lost for my dad though!). Looks like Maaya did just that!

Perhaps, PKB should have asked Maaya herself why her name is listed that way instead of calling it silly because one isn’t entitled to do so.

P.S. Her name is listed the same in ITF, AITA (that mandates that player names should match how it’s listed in ITF for uniformity), WTA, and all her socials.

[SaniaFan]

What PKB said is that it is silly to not have the given name on the scoreboard as I mentioned above. I don't think he said name is silly. But I think it is more of a software thing. The software they are using must be just picking up the last name.
Hope fully Jay will add back Revathi to have her complete name in the title.

[jayakris]

My fault, on renaming the thread. Changed it back. I had misread what PKB said, in my hurry. I had already heard before from another person that her last name is just Rajeswaran, and Kamesh Srinivasan in The Hindu also routinely writes only Maaya Rajeswaran in his reports. So I thought PKB was confirming it based on what he had heard from the parents or Maaya. I guess not. He was only complaining about the scoreboard.

So, unless it is confirmed from the parents or Maaya, it should be back to what ITF shows - which is most probably how the name is in her passport.

No, this was not because I prefer the male chauvinistic (absolutely so!) naming convention. I am a full supporter of not following the dad's name as the last name for all kids. In fact my son has my last name "Jayakrishnan" and my daughter has my wife's last name, "Hegde". Going even further back, my parents named me with an initial "R" from my dad's first name (Radhakrishnan) and my sister with an initial "C" from my mother's first name (Chinmayi), with neither of us having the caste name "Nair" as the last name. My parents were ultra-progressive way back in the 1960s on this matter!

[jayakris]

Meanwhile, Maaya just won the Delhi J300 title in a comeback 3-setter, 36 75 62 !!!

The win moves her up to around #65 in the junior rankings!! Wow.

[jayakris]

anyway, physical work does not seem to be an issue with Maaya. It is clear from pictures that she has been hitting the gym, and it can only get better with guidance from the Spanish academy now.

I thought you’ve been dead set against Spanish academies’ worth for Indian players, Jay. Case in point has been Ramkumar R, I think that you have ranted against numerous times.

True, I have been very lukewarm about Spanish academies. But I don't think I ever said that Indian academies were better. Until counter-evidence emerged, I would have looked at say German academies (which had at least shown some good results) over Spanish and US academies (mainly Bollitieri) who have not done any wonders with Indians. That's all. But that is all just my armchair opinion based on very scant data, so it should not be taken as a permanent opinion - even if I have the habit of sounding really convinced about what I say

Maaya's case seems to be different anyway, though. It seems the Nadal academy pretty much recruited her and is investing resources in her - not the other way around with Indians fully paying the academy (which was the RamK case, if I am not mistaken). Maaya visted multiple places and picked up the offer from Nadal. I think Manas' case was also similar. So my general aversion to Spanish academies does not apply much. If the player's team does the homework and is convinced of proper attention from the academy, then my general criticisms of the academies don't apply!