Need a travelling coach, physio to break into top-100, says Ankita

Enduring a stagnation on the professional circuit, India's top woman singles player Ankita Raina says she can certainly break into the top-100 barrier but for that to happen she needs a travelling coach and physio.

She has remained in same rankings bracket in the last two years but the 24-year-old Ankita contends that she maybe ranked 259 in singles but there is not much difference between players below 300 and 200.

In 2017, ending runner-up at the USD 60,000 ITF event in Luan was her best performance. En route the final, she beat world number 139 Fangzhou Liu in the quarterfinals but lost the title-clash to world number 124 and top seed Lin Zhu.Since then Ankita had a few semifinal finishes at similar events on the ITF circuit and also competed in USD 125K and 100k WTA events.

"The level has really gone up. Players inside 300s are as good as inside 150. There is not much difference. The margin of defeat and win is very thin now. It's one or two points that makes a huge difference in the final outcome. There are small things that need to be taken into consideration to graduate to the next level," Ankita told PTI on the sidelines of the Tata Open Maharashtra.

"After playing a long match, your body needs to recover fast to get ready for the next battle. Players who have good support in terms of coaches and physios, recover fast. Players like me who are alone, take more time to recover and hence struggle to be match ready after a gruelling contest, she explained.

"I am surprised why my name is not there. I am India's top-ranked player. What else I could do to be included in the list. I am not a 30-year-old who has no future ahead. I have firm belief that I am a top-100 player," said Ankita, who recently completed her graduation degree from BMCC college (Pune University).

"I have travelled alone since I was 16. I have come a long way. But I need help now in terms of support staff since that's the need of the hour. Players who are progressing fast are those who have help during the tournaments." Ankita contended that a coach can observe things from a different perspective from outside and since WTA allows coaching during matches, it can make some if not great difference to results.

"It's not like athletics that you train for few months and then compete at 3-4 events. We have to play tournaments throughout the year, so where is the time to add variety in the game. To do this, I have to travel with her," he said."Training has to be included during tournament. If she misses on training, how can she move forward. She gets to train with me only one week at a time but how will I observe if she has applied those things in matches." "I am willing to spend from my own pocket to add four more weeks. That way I can help her 10 tournaments in a year," he said.