Rathika Seelan keen to improve her mental resilience to perform better in key matches

The 23-year-old recently won her maiden PSA Challenger title in the Indore leg of the HCL Squash Tour and National women’s doubles title with Pooja Arthi.

FILE PHOTO: Rathika S Seelan (r) of Tamil Nadu in action during the women’s top seed semi-finals 79th National Squash championship. | Photo Credit: Akhila Easwaran/ The Hindu

Rathika Suthanthira Seelan (23) won her maiden PSA Challenger title in the Indore leg of the HCL Squash Tour in May.

Before that, in the same month, she had won the National women’s doubles title with Pooja Arthi at the Indian Squash and Triathlon Academy (ISTA) here.

Rathika attributes her progress to her coach Harinder Pal Singh Sandhu, who’s been coaching her for a few months now.

“I have been training with him for 3-4 months now. Game-wise, I’m playing more consistently. Earlier, I didn’t have consistent results. Now, it’s comparatively more consistent.

“We work almost everyday. Whatever he says, I try my best to listen to it. He has international experience, so his inputs have been beneficial,” she said at the ISTA here on Saturday (June 8).

Rathika said that the Brain Training (Neurofeedback training), which is a part of the HCL Squash Podium Program, has also been helpful.

“We have mental games - virtual reality. Basically, it’s to improve reaction time. We’ve been doing a lot of breathing exercises. So, it helps for me to reset myself after long rallies,” she said adding that she’s able to stretch herself when the match gets stretched.

For instance, she rallied from a game down to win the 45-minute quarterfinal, 9-11, 11-8, 11-8, 11-13, 11-1, versus Pooja Raghu in the Chennai leg of the HCL Squash Tour.

But she suffered a straight-game loss to Anahat Singh in the final on Saturday (June 8). She seemed off-colour, making enough unforced errors to play herself out of the contest.

It was Rathika’s second loss to Anahat in an important match in the PSA Challenger Tour this year. She had lost in straight games in just 16 minutes in the semifinal of the JSW Willingdon Little Masters and Senior Tournament in Mumbai in January.

Speaking of these losses, she said she needed to improve her mental resilience to perform better in such key matches.

“(In Monday’s final) I made a lot of mistakes, mostly couldn’t anticipate what she would do, and was very slow. Definitely, I have to be mentally stronger. I know she is a better player and that was a mental block, because I think it impeded me from playing freely and comfortably. I think I should work mentally, more than on-court. No matter how much I push physically, I think mentally it matters at the end of the day.”

She is optimistic about the India women’s team’s chances at the Asian Team Championships which gets underway on June 12 in China, and, having lost to Tanvi Khanna in the semifinal last time, aims to clinch the National women’s singles title this time.