For Sahaja Yamalapalli , the young tennis talent, finally, the moment of reckoning has arrived when she became only the third Indian women’s tennis player to win an ITF pro title when she clinched the honours in the SoCal Pro Series in the United States.
Interestingly, Sahaja joined the illustrious and six-time Grand Slam winner from her hometown (Hyderabad) and Karman Thandi to achieve this feat.
“I feel this win shows my evolution as a tennis player is on the right track,” said the tennis player, who hails from Khammam in Telangana.
“I feel it is an honour to join that group. I grew up watching Sania Mirza because she was the inspiration for many girls like me in India to take up tennis. She crossed all barriers and was a trendsetter for women’s tennis in India,” Sahaja informed Sportstar from the US.
“Honestly, I take this opportunity to inform you that I owe a lot to the owner of Kunal Pharma Distributors Pvt Ltd, Prahlad Kumar Jain, who was a tennis coach and owns a pharmaceutical company, for taking care of me since I was 15 years old. He is like God to me,” she said.
“This is one win I badly needed for I always had an impression that winning a title in the US was very tough having lost in the knock-out phase of quite a few tournaments here,” she said.
The 23-year-old Sahaja said winning an important title like this one outside India would always be special and a huge motivation.
“Perhaps, this also means that I am more mature mentally, adept at winning key moments in a match and have the desired fitness level too.
“I feel there is a lot of improvement on my serve and forehand. With greater stability in my forehand, I am able to score the big points despite being aggressive and even under pressure ,” Sahaja said.
“I wish to keep doing the same things which fetched me this title even while looking for all-round improvement for no player can be complete in all aspects,” she said.
Like many of her tribe, Sahaja for want of desired financial support is not able to have the luxury of one of her parents (she is the only daughter to them) travelling with her.
“It is very tough to be alone. I would love to have one of them with me. For, it will greatly help me especially when I am going through tough times,” she said.
“For the past three months, I have been supported by Tech Wave and the Lakshya Sports Foundation, which are taking most of my expenses on the circuit,” she said.
“I sincerely feel that this is the right time to get a major sponsor to hire a travelling coach too which is so important if you were to keep improving in the rankings,” Sahaja said.
With five back-to-back events lined up from July 15 in the US, Sahaja is looking to be consistent as the ultimate goal is to qualify for a Grand Slam championship.
For someone who graduated in academics in a US college in 2021, Sahaja seems to have hit the road now for bigger things to come.
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