Captain Shalini Thakur Chawla, proper, with Ankita Raina throughout the latest Billie Jean King Cup women’s tennis occasion in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
After a bright begin, when it beat Thailand and Uzbekistan, the Indian team couldn’t discover its well beyond China and Japan in the Billie Jean King Cup women’s tennis occasion in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. It needed to keep content material in the Asia-Oceania group-1.
“After qualifying to group-1 in 2015, the girls have done a tremendous job over the years to sustain the level and stay in the top group. We did make it to the World Group play-off two years ago”, noticed the captain of the team, Shalini Thakur Chawla.
There was not a lot at stake in the final tie towards Korea, in the round-robin format, however India held the fortunes of groups each for qualification and relegation.
Shalini recommended Ankita Raina and the team for placing up a high quality efficiency and competing onerous towards robust opponents.
“On the last day, we were safe. But it was not the case for Korea. A win would put them in World Group play-off and a loss against us could mean relegation”, identified Shalini, on the drama of the final day.
China had underestimated Korea and had rested its principal gamers Xinyu Wang and Yue Yuan for singles, and paid for it. Dayeon Back and Kim Dabin received the singles matches for Korea towards China. As luck would have it, Korea misplaced to Thailand. After being tied with similar variety of wins, Korea bought previous China, by advantage of getting overwhelmed it.
“On the last day, it rained all morning. There was only one indoor court, and we played Korea on that. We decided to rest Ankita who had played her heart out in all the matches and give Vaidehi Chaudhari a chance. Vaidehi did well to fight back from 0-5 to 4-5 in the third set. Rutuja Bhosale made it 1-1, and we couldn’t pull it off in doubles”, stated Shalni.
Japan was too robust for all the groups and dropped just one match out of 14.
“Against Moyuka Uchijima, Ankita was 3-1 in the third set and had a point for 4-1”, recalled the captain, as she praised Ankita for her ardour to struggle her finest for the nation for ten years.
“Our players are up there and match opponents stroke for stroke. They need a little more belief and consistency in the quality of the game. The top players don’t give an inch away on the crucial points. They play solid and stick to the basics”, stated Shalini.
