Ankita said that the success of a singles title is unparalleled but going so far in a doubles tournament was no mean achievement
Indian Tennis player Ankita Raina clinched her third doubles title of the season, winning the Al Habtoor Tennis Challenge with Georgia's Ekaterine Gorgodze in Dubai.
On Saturday, the unseeded Indo-Georgian pair defeated the pair of Spain's Aliona Bolsova Zadoinov and Slovakian Kaja Juvan by 6-4 3-6 10-6 to win the final of the event.
Ankita was delighted with the doubles title, however, opined that the success of singles circuit is unparalleled.
Speaking to the news agency PTI, Ankita said, "“The doubles has always helped me in singles. Playing well in doubles has always been followed by good run in singles in my career. You get to practice with good players, get to play and can work out a few things in matches.”
The USD 1,00,000 event was her biggest trophy of the season in which she appeared in four finals out of which she won three. The earlier two were at the USD 25,000 level.
Ankita won back-to-back titles in Nonthaburi (Thailand) with Bibiane Schoofs and ended up on second position in Jodhpur tournament playing with Snehal Mane, in February earlier this year.
After the pandemic-induced delay, Ankita was happy to be back travelling on tours and playing.
“It’s really good that I am able to travel again. I was doing a bit of training, both physical and mental at home and it was different coming back to tour. Europe had already opened up and their players already had two months of match sharpness behind them.
“Most of the matches were on clay at that time and I had never played so many back-to-back clay court matches. It was a good learning curve," Ankita told PTI.
After the tours kicked-off, Ankita has been constant on the run and especially was thankful to her coach after she got a lot of exposure of playing on the hard courts in the US.
“I have mostly played on hard courts and this time I got to play a lot in the US. Thankfully I had my coach Hemant Bendre’s friend Shirish Deshpande to help me out. He has been there for long as a coach.
“It was good to have someone watching your matches and giving feedback," Ankita added.
(With inputs from PTI)
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 "Ankita Raina and Ekaterine Gorgodze")
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