Following her debut in 2009 at the age 16, Ankita Raina was touted as the next Sania Mirza when she won the ADIDAS Nationals, the National grass-court championship, and earned a call-up to the Indian Fed Cup squad in a two-year span.
After that, however, her career-path did not exactly match the meteoric rise of the Hyderabadi. But in 2018, it can be safely said that Ankita has well and truly arrived. In April, she broke into the WTA top-200 for the first time in her career to only become the fourth Indian woman to do so.
It was preceded by two $25,000 ITF titles in Gwalior and Nonthaburi (Thailand), the first of which ended her four-year title drought. Then in August, at the Jakarta Asian Games, she clinched the singles bronze, probably her biggest achievement till date.
She ended her year on a high too, winning a slew of doubles titles with the biggest of them being the WTA 125K Series event in Chinese Taipei with fellow Indian Karman Kaur Thandi.
Stats:
WTA ranking: Singles 194, Doubles: 156.
Titles in 2018: Singles (2) -- $25,000 Gwalior, $25,000 Nonthaburi.
Doubles (3) -- $60,000 Luan, Taipei 125K Series, $25,000 Pune.
Win-loss in 2018: Singles 33-18
Doubles 21-18
Top three performances in 2018:
1) Asian Games singles bronze, August 23, Jakarta
2) WTA 125K Series doubles crown, November 18, Chinese Taipei.
3) $25,000 ITF title after a four-year gap, March 17, Gwalior
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