Ankita Raina (DLTA Photography)
NEW DELHI: When this writer spoke to the Indian team ahead of their Group 1 match at the Billie Jean King Asia-Oceania Cup in New Delhi, Ankita Raina categorically pointed out that she was not finished with singles play.
She was right. The 33-year-old had recently played on March 23 at W15 in Nagpur. However, her last appearance in the national flag was two years ago and her last win came on April 9, 2024. After a comfortable win, she lost four straight in the same week, including a double bake at the hands of China’s Chenwen Zheng.
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Last year, non-playing captain Vishal Uppal shifted his focus towards the youth in the singles department. Shrivali Bhamidipati, Sahaja Yamalapalli and Vidhi Chaudhary.
Meanwhile, Raina has become the designated marital choice.This has remained the topic throughout this week. Vaishnavi Adkar replaced the injured Bhamidipaty and Yamalapalli, and Zeel Desai played the other singles rubber.Back on the wall and in a must-win position, Uppal returns to his former team with the experience of No. 1 India. India had to beat Korea 3-0 and needed Indonesia to beat Thailand in order to qualify for the qualifiers for the second year in a row.
Recent history has given India reason to believe, as they have won their last two matches with Korea (2-1 in 2024 and 2025). But India has never beaten Korea 3-0 in a team competition.Unfortunately for India’s chances, that streak continued on Saturday. The Indian team beat Korea 2-1, while the other match did not go their way either with Thailand beating Indonesia.As a result, India finished third – behind Thailand and Indonesia – with only the top two teams qualifying for the qualifiers.If a strong start was the need of the hour, things did not go to plan as Raina trailed 0-4 in the first set after playing a 20-point game along the way.After losing the first set, Reina had the upper hand in the second set and led 5-3 in an attempt to force a deciding set. However, Dayeon Back, ranked 342nd, put on an impressive performance to win four straight games, including 16 points from their last 23.“One is that (experience). The second reason is that the courts are slow.
“The way Dayon Back plays, we needed a player who could put pressure on her and get to the net,” Opal said.“It was also part of the strategy to have Vaishnavi face Seohyun Park because, I mean, I’ve watched Park enough and I know that in order to beat her, we need to bring more firepower because she hits a lot of shots. That part of the plan was good.”“Like I said, it’s not about today. We messed up on the first day (against Thailand). So, I mean, look at the idea against Korea at the beginning of the week as well that we have to get to the doubles, no matter what, because I know our doubles team is very strong, very good.”“We showed that with a dominant win. So I think the strategy today was to press because we knew we had to try to win 3-0 today. And yeah, things didn’t go our way.”With the first singles match lost, the rest of the match became a mere formality. But that didn’t mean much to the crowd, which occupied many of the seats as the sun set.India’s top-ranked Vaishnavi Adkar and Sohyun Park gave the crowd plenty of joy in the two-hour and 20-minute contest which Adkar won 7-6 7-6.In the final doubles, Raina teamed up with Rutuja Bhosale to beat Back and Eunhye Lee 6-2, 6-2.
