Ankita beats Katy to win NECC-ITF title

 Ankita Raina

Pune, December 27, 2014: Ankita Raina capped her tumultuous year with an inspiring straight set victory over Briton Katy Dunne to win the $25,000 NECC-ITF tennis title, a first for an Indian after a gap of 14 years, at the Deccan Gymkhana courts on Saturday.

Ankita made a positive start to the match and after Katy began throwing her frustration around the Indian grabbed the initiative to win the summit clash 6-2, 6-2.

Having played quite a few three-setters during the week, Ankita was ready for the worst, and that boosted her confidence by a few notches as she took control of the proceedings once Katy began falling apart.

The then National champion Radhika Tulpule had won the title in the inaugural year in 2001 when she beat Archana Venkatraman in three sets and since then four more Indians made it to the summit clash—Isha Lakhani doing it twice—but failed to get past the final hurdle.

“My goal now is to get into top 200 of the WTA Rankings. This year I was defending a lot of points of 2013 that’s why my rakings hovered around 290,” said Ankita after her win.

Ankita will move up in the 250-260 bracket after the WTA rankings are published on Monday as she won 50 valuable points for her title triumph.

“Since I was playing this final in Pune and with the kind of support I got from fans, I wanted to give my best,” said Ankita who now heads to Kerala for the National Games.

“Very excited to do it on home ground,” added Ankita.

The match began on equal terms as the two players held their own service games till 3-2 when Ankita broke Katy in the sixth game. She then took the seventh game at love before breaking the Briton again to wrap up the first set 6-2.

“When the second set began, I decided to hurry up the things. Even though I was broken in the opening game, I calmed myself down and waited for Katy to commit mistakes,” explained Ankita.

After Ankita lost her first service game in the second set, at 1-2 she shot back to bring the set on level when Katy double faulted.

The turn of things frustrated Katy and when she threw her racket she was given a warning by the chair umpire. Katy again double faulted in the sixth game when she was down 30-40 to hand 4-2 lead to Ankita.

The Indian then took the next game without much of a fuss and then earned two championship points at 15-40 before Katy returned long for Ankita to script 6-2, 6-2 win.

“It didn’t go as well as I had hoped for. I had a good week winning over better rated players, and I expected to do well today,” said Katy Dunne.

Prizes were given at the hands of Mr. BSR Sastri, GM, NECC and Mr. Mukund Joshi, Tournament Director.

Photo Caption 3: Winners with chief guests (from L to R) Mukund Joshi, Ankita Raina, BSR Sastri, Katy Dunne and Sheetal Iyer.

Press release