What’s common between the 2017 WTA Mumbai Open and the 2024 Australian Open? The women’s singles champion: Aryna Sabalenka.
That seems a long way back in the tennis life of the now two-time Grand Slam champion from Belarus who was just about starting to make her mark at the elite level then. And even further back in the life of the WTA tournament in Mumbai, which ended prematurely a year later.
Revived after six long years, the WTA 125K event returns to the city as the L&T Mumbai Open kicks off with the main draw on the hard courts of Cricket Club of India on Monday. In a year in which India lost its lone ATP tournament on the calendar, the country finds its presence again on the WTA Tour — women’s tennis’ top tier — after Mumbai last held the event in 2018 and Chennai played one-off hosts in 2022.
India has had some back-to-back ITF women’s tournaments over the last few months. Playing a WTA event though is a different experience and a step up, which most Indian women pros have not had and will now have through this tournament.
The organisers awarded all four singles wild cards to Indians, and while India women’s No.1 Ankita Raina and Asian Games mixed doubles gold medallist Rutuja Bhosale have been there, India No.2 Sahaja Yamalapalli, 22, and 19-year-old Vaishnavi Adkar, a promising talent from Maharashtra, will get their first taste of playing at WTA level. So will Shrivalli Bhamidipaty, the 22-year-old ranked 521 who stunned second seed Valentini Grammatikopoulou (ranked 206) in the first qualifying round and booked her spot in the main draw beating Viktoria Morvayova 6-3, 3-6, 6-3 on Sunday.
“This will give the Indian girls the opportunity to play at a higher level. These are the players who play at the Slams and its qualifying rounds. That’s where, after all, you want to play,” Ankita, the top-ranked Indian at 228, said on Sunday. “Having this WTA tournament consistently will surely see more players at the top level. Because it not only saves up on travel and expenses, you’re also getting that exposure at home.”
Ankita, 31, cites her own example from 2017 when, as a wild card entrant at the home WTA event, she stormed into the quarter-finals. Her rankings surged and belief boosted, she made her Slam qualifying debut the next season (she has since been a regular there) and won a singles bronze at the 2018 Asian Games.
“That week surely gave me a lot of confidence, and also in terms of my rankings because in one week I earned a lot of points,” Ankita said. “Having that one good week, like for me in 2017, can completely change a season.”
Shrivalli, the national champion who trains in Hyderabad, will hope for something similar this week. She already feels so in a way, having come into her debut WTA tournament with nothing to lose and having had two quality outings in the qualifiers, a main draw spot to gain while “experiencing the bigger league”.
“It’s a really huge boost,” Shrivalli said after her win on Sunday. “I came in with zero expectations. It was my debut at this level and I just wanted to go out on the court and have fun. Winning against the second seed who has been doing really well on the Tour was great for me. And then going into the main draw…I don’t know, it still hasn’t sunk in.”
The 22-year-old will take on second seed and world No. 94 Nao Hibino of Japan in the first round. Ankita plays eighth seeded American Katie Volynets.
Other prominent players include top seed American Kayla Day (world No.92), 2021 French Open semi-finalist Tamara Zidansek of Slovenia (ranked 97) and Alina Korneeva, the highly promising Russian teen who was the world No.1 junior last year. The 16-year-old lifted the Australian Open and French Open junior singles titles last year. Qualifying for the main draw of the 2024 Australian Open, she advanced to the second round on Slam debut.
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