Nidhi Surapaneni gets surprise wild card for Citi Open

One of the country’s best juniors in the girls section, Nidhi Surapaneni got a wild card for the $250,000 Citi Open WTA Tour event in Washington DC courtesy her doubles partner Malkia Menguene.

Nidhi Surapaneni with her doubles partner Malkia Menguene.

Luck can smile on you, if you are at the right place at the right time, possibly in right company as well.

One of the country’s best juniors in the girls section, Nidhi Surapaneni was pleasantly surprised to get a doubles wild card for the $250,000 Citi Open WTA Tour event in Washington DC.

‘’My partner, Malkia Menguene is from the U.S. and so she got the wild card for doubles. She chose me as her partner. It was unexpected’’, said the 17-year-old Nidhi, ranked a modest 247 among the juniors.

Understandably, Nidhi is quite thrilled about being in the same tournament as some of the biggest stars, both men and women, of tennis. She is hoping to capitalise on the rich experience of early exposure into the big league.

Nidhi had won an ITF grade-3 junior tennis tournament last week in Vancouver, Canada, with Maya Tahan of Israel.

Nidhi is the sixth best ranked girl in the country behind Karman Kaur Thandi (72), Pranjala Yadlapalli (78), Zeel Desai (81), Mahak Jain (90) and Mihika Yadav (167).

Her last women’s tournament was the $10,000 event back home in Hyderabad last September, where she qualified for the main draw in singles and made the second round.