USTA U18 No. 1 ranked Ronit Karki was in Spring, Texas to play the ITF Juniors J300 Pan-American ITF. Mahitha Dadireddy caught up with Ronit to get his thoughts on
- US Open Juniors debut
- On his season so far
- The team behind Ronit
- Schedule ahead
And a small rapid fire to know Ronit at a personal level for us. Excerpts below.
You had your debut at the US Open recently. It must have been a lifelong dream and hard work to get to that stage. How was your feeling?
Before the US Open, I was preparing, but I wasn’t exactly sure if I was going to get in. So I was kind of just preparing. Then the chance came and I was super excited.
It was definitely a surreal experience because it is such an amazing atmosphere. You’re just super excited to be there and everybody wants to win even more, so it’s even more competitive. Then there are a lot more emotions on the court. So it was an amazing experience.
Talk about your 2 matches there. The win against Lorenzo Beraldo (ITA, 60) by 1-6 6-0 10-8 in Q1 and then the close match to Denis Petak (CZH, 46) by 0-6 4-6 in Q2.
The 1st match was interesting. We had two 1-sided sets to split the match. Lorenzo was playing pretty well. Both of us, once we each got our lead in both sets, we ran away with it and loosened up.
The final set, it was just a battle and a few close points decided to match. I was down a little bit in the tie break, so I just stuck around and that ended up paying off. That was really exciting.
Against Denis Petak, it was definitely a little disappointing because I didn’t play my best, and I thought that I had a really good chance of winning. But I gave it a pretty solid effort, and that’s all that really matters because I can’t control how good or bad I’m gonna play.
I gave a pretty good effort and I learned a lot of lessons, and that helped me in my training this month.
You transitioned to completely playing the higher tier ITF Junior events this year. You played on European Clay as well. How do you review the season so far?
Playing the higher tier events – you’re gonna learn a lot on what it really takes. You gotta work harder and harder and it really comes down to details. These tournaments really opened my eyes and showed me how I have to fine tune little things and bring it all together so that I can compete the hardest and show my best game.
What do you consider as your strengths and the areas you need to improve to go deep in these tourneys?
I am solid on most parts of my game. I do not have a big weakness or anything like that. I can make some tricky shots when I like, need to. It can be really annoying to play against.
I need to work on just getting fitter and stronger because the game will only get more physical from here. Additionally, I can always get better at focusing.
On the loss today in R3 of the ITF Juniors J300 Pan American to Benjamin Willwerth (USA, 60) by 3-6 3-6
It was a tricky one today. I know Ben pretty well, so we’re pretty good friends. I knew how he played going into it. It was going to be a battle because he is very talented and makes a lot of tough shots and he just makes it pretty painful to play against.
I played pretty well. I had a pretty good attitude on court. I fought pretty hard in a lot of games that kept me in the first set and gave me a chance to come back in the first set. But definitely some areas to improve on.
Could you share details on the team behind you?
I’ve been working with coach Jay Gooding and I’ve been at his academy in Orlando for almost two years. We’ve been working together and for fitness, working with Coach Craig, who works at the USTA as well, so very knowledgeable guy. They have definitely helped me bring my game to the next level and they’re gonna help me improve even more from here.
My mom stays with me in Orlando most of the time. I visit my dad a lot too. He’s working in New Jersey so we don’t get to see him too often anymore. My sister Naomi Karki is in college. She’s at Rutgers doing her sophomore year and playing for the team as well. So she’s very supportive.
What is your schedule for the rest of the reason?
I’ll be going to Mexico at the end of November to play the J300 and the J500 events. Then I will play the American ITFs at the end of the year in December – J300 in Bradenton and J500 in Plantation.
I’m definitely going to go back and do a lot of work in Orlando. I will be playing on clay now, so that’ll be fun.
RAPID FIRE
| Hobbies | Video games, Jewellery, hang out with friends and listening to music |
| Fav travel destination | Cruise ship trips |
| Fav cuisine or dish | Bowl of ramen and fried rice |
| A place that you have not been to, but would like to visit | Greece. I heard a lot of good things about it and they have good beaches too and I like beaches |
| A loss that hurt you the most | Maybe the Orange Bowl final |
| A rule change that you would like to bring into tennis | This one’s gonna be controversial but I’d say, take out the lefties.I practice with a lefty every day. It’s the most annoying thing ever. So I’d say, ban the lefties, force them to play right. |
| If you could play a match at any court in the world, where would it be? | Playing in Antarctica would be fun |