Ankita Raina: New Kid on the Tennis Block

Currently ranking Indian no 1 in women's singles Ankita Raina was born on the 11th of January 1993 in Ahmedabad. Ankita made her professional debut in 2009 at a small ITF tournament in Mumbai, She continued participating in local ITF tournaments with not much of success. However, gradually her hard work started yielding result and in 2012 she advanced to three ITF circuit finals in doubles. She won one with Aishwarya Aggarwal. In the same year she won her first professional singles title in New Delhi and added three more wins to her doubles. Till now Ankita has won six singles and thirteen doubles titles from the ITF tour in her career. She entered the top 200 singles ranking in the world on 9th April 2018 becoming the only third India to achieve this feat. She had already positioned herself at world number 260 in the doubles rankings. Ankita also won Gold Medals in the singles and mixed doubles events at the 2016 South Asian Games.

Since last 4 consecutive Asian Games it was only Sania Mirza who featured in the Indian Women Tennis contingent. As she is the new mom to be she will not be present to lead the Indian Women's Team in Indonesia. The responsibility now rests on the young shoulder of Ankita. No other Indian woman player but for Sania has won single medal in Tennis at Asian Games. Ankita is very eager to add her own to that tiny list.

By: Madhuchanda Saxena

Content: http://www.dnaindia.com/sports/report-asian-games-ankita-raina-s-big-chance-2649047