Ankita Raina went down fighting against 30th seed and WTA #145 Moyuka Uchijima at the Roland Garros qualifying event here in Paris 6-7(1) 1-6. Although the crowd had a good mix of Indian and Japanese supporters, one particular group of Japanese kids had their volumes up throughout the match, sometimes even shouting in between Raina’s first and second serves, irking the Indian.
“As the first set score suggests, it was really close. The 5-5 game was really important. At 2-1 in the tiebreak, I converted a forehand but missed it, and all the points went against me thereafter. She played quite well in the second set, started the first two or three games really solid,” said Raina about the match.
The conditions seemed to be a bit tricky, with the wind changing directions with very high frequency. When asked about it, Raina was quick to dismiss it as a major factor as she said “it was the same for both players”. But she went on to explain how it affected her own game style – “The wind was tough to judge because sometimes at the beginning of a point I thought the wind was against me, so I was trying to hit deep shots and not even going close to the lines, but it suddenly changed directions, taking the ball long”.
After two weeks on clay, Raina is undecided on her schedule ahead. “I’m yet to sit down with my coaches and speak about it. There are a couple of ITF’s and there’s also one WTA 125 event. I would definitely like to play the WTA if I get it. We’ll see how it goes,” says Raina, as she signs off looking a little disappointed, and understandably so.
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