Krushmi Chheda is India’s leading Nutritionist and Sports Scientist as well as a former giant of Indian Tennis.
In this interview, Krushmi Chheda , talks about her journey into tennis, Nutrition and her work with India No.1 Ankita Raina, Find out more about tennis player-turned-nutritionist Krushmi herself.
These are series of articles going in-depth into the journey of Ankita Raina, the Indian no.1 in singles and doubles on the WTA Rankings. Find out more from the previous articles here –
1. “She is waiting for her opportunity. And it will come – sooner or later” – Lalita Raina ji, sharing a mother’s perspective, on the tennis journey of Ankita Raina
2. “Face challenges. Do not get bogged down. Do not look back. March ahead despite all the difficulties.” advises Ravinder Krishan Raina ji, father of the Indian no. 1 at WTA Rankings, Ankita Raina
3. Ankur Raina, brother of Indian No.1 Ankita Raina, provides a sibling’s perspective on the inspiring journey of Ankita
4. “There were so many players more talented than her, but her hard work stood out” – Coach Hemant Bendrey on Ankita Raina
Can you provide details on your relationship with Ankita Raina and your initial impressions on working with her ?
Ankita is a fun person. She is light-hearted and fun to be around. She loves music and loves to dance. More than anything, she is dedicated to tennis which is why She is currently the No.1 tennis player in our country.
Her family has put in a lot of sacrifices and it comes around immediately. I didn’t even have to wake her up and tell her what her routine should be. She is a mature tennis player and not everyone is as dedicated to her. Players spend a lot of time on the tennis circuit and it gets very hard to self motivate. There are some players more dedicated than others. She is one of them.
She does her warm-ups and cool-downs. She makes sure that she is hitting with good players. She is well prepared for her matches. She has traveled so much that she is aware of her do’s and don’ts. What I was helping her to do, was to tweak and polish out wherever she was falling back. So for her meal plans, I would go down with her for her breakfast, to understand what her routine was and what she likes to eat. We were weighing her food so she could understand her portion sizes, but I didn’t need to do it over and over again. I practiced the food routine with her for 2-3 days. She identified what she had to do. She is a very quick learner which I think helps her a lot. She learns from her mistakes and tries to better them. She is hungry for more which is the best part.
What do you think are her strengths and the areas where she could have improve?
Her strengths – She is a strong girl, both physically and mentally. She is very strong on court. She has fantastic groundstrokes. So I think game-wise and skill-wise, she right up there with the top players. When I saw her play her matches even with the top seeds, she was close and on par with them. She is as strong as a top 100 player.
Her dedication, hunger and desire to get better is another strength that she has. The thing which she could work on was how she moves and how she can sustain her intensity throughout the match. It is the toughest thing for her because she plays so many weeks outside her training base, so we can’t help her to build up. There was a phase where we were trying to pull up her muscle strength and reduce the fat which we were able to do but sustaining that gets hard because she is always traveling to places in such quick intervals that she may not be able to sustain her training program.
And she is playing singles and doubles. She has been doing great at the doubles circuit as well. It’s tough to sustain because she has to play so many matches. The tennis circuit is gruelling and there are no breaks on the circuit. The great thing is that she is fit. The issue is to sustain whatever she is trying to improve on, in her offseason. She has the belief. She had gotten some great back to back wins this season and she was on a spree. It’s unfortunate that we have been hurt with the Coronavirus. Otherwise, she was on a good spree right now.
What do you think were her strengths and the areas where should get better back then?
I had to focus on her nutrition. She travels so much and she loves her food. She is quite a foodie but she is disciplined. The minute we gave her the plan she was going to follow that. The thing which gets tough is the availability of food. So what I had to help her do was to give her different plans for different continents. We were trying to work on building consistency. Consistency in the way she plays in her matches, consistency in her eating patterns, trying to help her identify what is enough for her because she would either under-eat or overeat, which we have been able to change now.
Your thoughts on Ankita Raina – the player. She has been No.1 for India for many years now. What do you think makes her stand out?
It is her dedication and love for the sport. I think she eats, drinks, sleeps Tennis which is what makes her very special. I think a lot of players do get distracted somewhere down the line but I don’t think she has ever been distracted. Since the last few years that I have worked with her, I have never seen her go stray. Her world revolves around tennis and I think this is what makes her stand out from the rest of the players.
How did your journey into tennis begin? When did you first realize that you can pursue it professionally?
As a kid, I was a hyperactive child. I used to go to a club for swimming and there were tennis courts nearby. During Diwali holidays I joined tennis, After some time I played a club tournament and beat quite a few good players. So my parents got called by a coach and I decided to pursue it seriously. I am naturally a lefty and I picked the sport quickly.
Your first ITF junior match was against Sania Mirza in Mumbai in a grade IV. Any memories from this match?
Sania and I played each other at the national circuit a lot, we played some tough 3 setters and there were some easy matches as well which I lost. She was already the No.1 in the age group at that time. She was a tough competitor but I quite liked playing her because she plays aggressive and so do I, and I like playing faster-paced games, At that point, I still had not beaten her, I beat her when I was 16 it was then when I realized my potential and in under 16 and 18 I got into the top five in the country and for me, that was the rising page of my junior career.
You had a couple of ITF doubles final as well – Any memories from that?
Doubles has always been fun for me. I think my Doubles ranking has always been higher than my singles purely because I think Doubles is more fun for me and I think I always had an advantage because I can play well from both sides. I liked being at the net. My coach has always been particular about us being able to volley well and use our serves well. I still remember my first ITF Doubles outside the country in Tunisia. I am not personally someone who would go out of the way to hit people but I remember getting smacked in my first doubles match in ITF juniors. I realised that people are not going to spare you.
How do you view your overall tennis career?
I think I could have had a better tennis career, had my timeline been better. I did not get in because I am not from a professional Sporting family. I think I was a late starter to learn the sport. To learn the sport at seven and a half years, it’s quite late if you want to go professional. However, my journey did pick up the pace from the age of 12 to 18. I had a lack of consistent coaches because every time I was coached hard, the coach had to move from one place to another. I had to change coaches because my coach had to move to another country altogether. I thought that always set me back a couple of months because it was tough to find the same kind of rapport or coordination. So, I think I could have had a more consistent career and maybe a longer one if I had the knowledge of Sports Science and Nutrition.
The time constraint was also there because by the time I started playing ITF juniors, I was already in my 2 years of Juniors. With all the injuries and the career graph I’ve had and the grind of the tennis circuit, If I had to do it all over again, I definitely would. It was thoroughly enjoyable and it was the best time of my life so far.
Your journey into sports science and nutrition. What was the inspiration behind this move and how did you prepare for it
I got a supportive family. I had always been more inclined towards academics. Even when I was playing, I was studying full time. I could manage both. My Idea was to get into the Science side of the sport because when I was younger, we did not have the expertise in sports nutrition and we did not have the expertise in sports specific exercises. I always found that loophole. And when I traveled abroad, I saw the kind of facilities that they had and how far behind we were with nutrition, exercise, and psychology. I wanted to study in that domain so that I could bring it back home, for players going ahead and myself.
I started this journey when I was 18 which meant I would use it for my career and it’s always better when you can study something and apply it on your own. I chose to do sports science as my base because it is a bigger umbrella. It covers exercise, body movements, biomechanics, nutrition and psychology. After this, I got intrigued by nutrition. It’s something so simple and everybody needs it but if you do it right, it’s something that would help you. Comparing it with BioMechanics where you will need a lab set up to be able to test someone. I thought nutrition is something that would cater to a larger audience so I decided to specialise in nutrition.
Did your background in tennis in any way prepare you for this?
Yeah absolutely. Even today, after a decade of consulting in the industry, I feel tennis is what helps me leverage my information in sports science because it’s different when you study it in books and it’s very different when you have done it and have gone through all the glitches in your career. And you understand how it can help you prevent injuries and how it can elevate your performance. I think tennis plays a much bigger role in my life than academic degrees because I’m able to amalgamate both together to advise the players that I work with now.
Can you share a bit of detail on how your journey went in this field before you started working with Pro athletes?
When I started, I believed I could only help a few because my thought process was different for professional athletes. And my idea was to work in London for a few years because that is where it was advanced. I worked at the London Tennis Association where they had such amazing facilities. Top 20 British tennis players used to train there. If we had such a facility in India, I believe we would’ve produced way more top quality players. I was in awe with the kind of facility that they had and sometimes my blood would boil thinking that I wish we would have such facilities here. Then I thought I would work there and then eventually the idea was to bring it back to my country where the supply is so low of such experts and it’s such a niche industry and people tend to not look into it. It was a gamble but I had already decided to take it. I wanted to stay connected to sports my entire life even if it meant I would work with 10 people instead of 20,000. So I came back to India. I only came back to realise that there was such high potential and we have a lot of young athletes who are trying to pursue sports but they stop by the age of 16 or 18 because the academic pressure takes over or people want early results resulting in extremely high dropout rates. So big groups that I ended up working with were young athletes which were great because they eventually became elites. I had the best of both worlds because my access to elite athletes was more in London and my access to young athletes was more in India.
You work with athletes from many sports. How different are the demands of each sport? And within the Racquet sports?
A lot of the population is involved in Racquet sports. You have Tennis, Badminton and Squash. Their training requirements are very different. Also, the environment is very different. For example, Badminton is indoors and is much quicker than the other 2 sports. Same way, Squash is also indoors, It needs a lot of endurance. Whereas Tennis is a mix of both. You have to be on the court for around 3 hours and play with the same intensity and power but you get more breaks. You can sit during the changeovers compared to Badminton where you have to stand on court, there are no chairs but their coach can come and talk to them. In Tennis, the temperature, humidity – everything matters. So you’re not just battling your energy demands but also how your opponent is playing. Different sports have different demands, the training demands.
In Cricket, during the offseason, a lot of times players don’t have that much net practice but they are doing strength and mobility work in the gym or working on other things. So you are not replicating an actual match each time. When you’re playing tennis, very often after getting a good hit, you then want to play some sets which are replicating what you do in a match. So demands are very different in different kinds of sports.
Second is, how you are going to be pursuing your tournament schedule? So there are people who have back to back tournaments, so their training changes accordingly. Some people have longer offseason, they have more time, they can move into their offseason plan.
And third is the kind of sport and the skill it requires because, in a speed-based sport, you’re only trying to beat your timing, you are only trying to better your performance. Whereas, in a racquet sport you’re constantly playing a new opponent each time. So you have to come up with various strategies. So it’s not just physical, it’s also a very mental based sport.