Mumbai: This year’s L&T Mumbai Open is the fourth edition of the WTA 125 event. The biggest tournament for women’s tennis in India provides a platform for the country’s players to earn some ranking points and prize money without needing to spend much on travel abroad.
It’s a platform that comes with the hope of a player making a breakthrough and use the event as a springboard. On Thursday, in just over two hours of play, two Indians took advantage of the opportunity by securing their spots in the quarter-finals. This was the first time two players from the country have reached this far in singles at a competition of this magnitude.
Shrivalli Bhamidipaty picked up an impressive 6-4, 6-0 win over former world No.39 Aleksandra Krunic in a match that lasted 58 minutes. An hour and eight minutes later, former world No.31 Zarina Diyas retired due to illness against 15-year-old Maaya Rajeshwaran Revathi. Maaya was leading 6-3, 3-2 at the time.
It has been steady progress for both the Indians in their own unique journeys.
Bhamidipaty, the elder of the two at 23, had reached the second round of the Mumbai Open last year. She was ranked 520 in the world at the time, but the win on Thursday could see her ranking jump from the current 325 to 312.
“There has been a positive push in my game,” Bhamidipaty said after the match. “In the past one year, I have started believing myself more and backing myself more. Whether it’s a win or loss, I’ve been taking it in a positive way.”
She did take a little while for that belief to kick in at the start of her match on the Cricket Club of India courts. Krunic had taken a 3-0 led in the opening game before Bhamidipaty started to find her rhythm.
The Indian then started to back her game style – a big serve complemented by heavy groundstrokes off both flanks. Her two-handed backhand, in particular, was used with devastating effect.
She struck a backhand return winner to bring up a set point in the first set before forcing an error on the next point to win the first set. The Hyderabad-native continued to hit big in the second set as well, not giving Krunic much time to recover.
Bhamidipaty eventually won eight games on the trot to secure her spot in the quarter-final.
Soon after, the revelation of the tournament, Maaya took to the centre court. At the moment, the teenager from Coimbatore does not have a WTA ranking. But she has now won 33 ranking points in the past few days that takes her to a possible world No. 778 spot.
While Bhamidipaty was granted a wild card into the main draw, Maaya was handed a wild card into the qualification round. She played two three-set matches to get into the main draw in her first appearance at a tournament of this magnitude.
On Tuesday, she was relentless in her straight-sets win over Iryna Shymanovich. She continued in that same vein against Diyas.
Maaya, who recently made news when she was selected to train at the Rafael Nadal Academy in Mallorca for a year, once again put on a display of her courtcraft. She tackled Diyas’ variations – the Kazakh kept mixing her play with topspin, flat strokes and moonballs – with powerful and accurate groundstrokes.
She explained that she did lose her concentration at 5-2 up in the first set, but Diyas had started to wilt due to an illness. Eventually, the 31-year-old decided to retire from the match.
Though two Indians have made it through to the quarter-final, Ankita Raina, who had reached the last eight at the inaugural edition in 2017, lost out 5-7, 6-2, 6-7(5) to second seed Rebecca Marino of Canada.
On Friday, Bhamidipaty and Maaya will have a chance on riding the wave they have created for themselves in Mumbai as they aim for a spot in the semi-final. For that, Bhamidipaty will have to overcome fifth seed Jil Teichmann of Switzerland and Maaya will take on Japan’s Mei Yamaguchi.
