On the eve of her new WTA Top-350 ranking, Sahaja Yamalapalli spoke to Yash Shah from Indian Tennis Daily on the title win in Solapur, the new career high rank, playing with Vaishnavi Adkar, impact of Coach Ashley and the impact of the Leagues on her doubles game.

Thoughts on your big title win last week.

I just went into the match with a clear head and just wanted to give my best and enjoy everything, don’t care about anything else. It was more mental than anything. I was playing freely and just enjoying on court. I think that was the main thing that actually made a difference than before.

It was your maiden top 200 win. Was there any game plan going into the game? 

Just like any other match I went into that match too with a game plan because she’s a great player. She’s higher ranked than me of course and I knew how she plays. I just executed it better that day and I came on the winning side. 

You are set to move in the top 350 WTA rankings. How much does this mean? 

It means a lot because at this point where everything moves very close and small you don’t get a huge ranking jump unless you win a title. So it does mean a lot to me because I’ve been in the 400s for the past 7-8 months so moving into the top 350 is very special. 

You have been playing mostly in the US for the past few months competing against the big girls. How has that experience been in America? 

I think that helped me a lot because I played all the W60s W80s and W100s and all. I’ve seen top 100 players play those tournaments.

So I learned so many things even though I didn’t come out on the winning side but I got to see how they play like mentally , how they carry themselves and all that in person. So that was very huge for my career to understand all these things and get some exposure that way. 

On your training with Ashley Hobson in Florida. 

I went there for one week in the beginning. and mainly to work on my serve. And then we saw many things in my game that could potentially get better and could do some tweaks here and there. We spent so much time on serve, just improving serve and also about being more aware on court. Just being more mature and seeing what’s going on and developing the game a little bit more. 

I played on clay when I was there. For the first time on red clay. So that experience. was also great. Working with him for like a couple weeks has really helped me going into different tournaments so hopefully I go there again in future and train more. 

Your serve has become very consistent in the past year in terms of double fault counts. How has that progressed? 

It’s been great because I’ve been putting so much time and effort on just the serve because the serve is the first thing for the game to start. That should be the solid foundation. I was like, I need to have a bigger serve because the ball is in my hand. That was the main thing that I’ve been working on. I think it made a difference too. The double falls went down and I’m more confident. I’m placing the ball better on the serve. And not just the serve, but the shot after the serve also. I’m not sure if I understood how to use it in different ways. It’s been great that my serve has been going well.

In doubles – you and Vaishnavi Adhkar have had a couple of big wins in the last week. How did this partnership start and how do you review your doubles game? 

I reached out to Vaishnavi a month ago and asked her like hey do you want to play doubles because we never played before it was our first time last week and I just thought like we would click well because she also has a big game and I have a big game too so I thought like we could complement each other well on court. We take care of each other at the net if I’m at the back and if I’m in the net and her in the back so I thought okay let’s try it out and our coordination worked really well in Solapur.  We had some good wins and even today we played a really good match but we lost very close but hopefully we’ll keep playing more and then build up on this even more. 

In general, my doubles game is much better than where it was. Especially playing the leagues, I’ve seen all the men’s doubles players there, I’ve learned so many things. So I’m very thankful to be around them in those leagues and learnt a lot from them. 

About financial struggles on tour. 

I still don’t have any big sponsor. My dad’s friends helped me out with fundraising and stuff. So it’s been very challenging and I have three people who help me from their own pocket. It’s not like a company giving me. So even for them it’s tough. Even for us it’s hard to ask. I hope that some company or some big person comes forward to help me out. So it’s just that I know that I’m getting it so I don’t have to think about it. 

But now it’s like, I don’t know if the funds will come or not. So it’s all up in the air. If that goes away then I think I’ll be more relaxed mentally and then play more freely. 

Tennis is a tough and lonely sport. Can you talk about your support system? Who are the people behind you? Your family? 

I would say my parents who have been there since the beginning. I wasn’t very good growing up. I was still in the learning process. I was more like a late bloomer, I would say. But they stuck with me and they pushed me even more. Like, they were never negative or never said anything when I was losing a lot and they just kept pushing me and telling me you can do this. My family has been the biggest support system and of course my coaches right now and all the team at PBI Academy and Ashley and a lot of other people who have been helping me, guiding me and stuck with me no matter what. I am very thankful for that.