Indian tennis upcomer Vaishnavi Adkar, fresh off her maiden ITF pro singles title win in Ahmedabad, spoke to Indian Tennis Daily on the eve of the ITF W75 event at the Deccan Gymkhana in Pune.
Tirtha Mutha: You’re back playing in home conditions again in Pune. How are you feeling this time?
Vaishnavi Adkar: I like, I started playing tennis at Deccan, so it’s basically like a home ground for me. And I always love playing here, love the fast conditions here. So always I’m feeling pretty confident.
Tirtha Mutha: You won your maiden pro single title in Ahmedabad last month. How was that experience?
Vaishnavi Adkar: Oh, that was pretty good. Like, you know, for my confidence and everything, it helped a lot because I won the tournament without dropping a set. And even in the doubles, we saved a couple of match points in the finals. So it was really like an amazing week.
Tirtha Mutha: You have played top 200 player Dalila Jakupovic a couple of times over the past year, including in Delhi two weeks ago. How do you review these two matches?
Vaishnavi Adkar: I think both the times one of the sets went pretty close, I lost in the tie break. But the last time that I played her, that, as you said, two weeks back in Delhi, I felt I could see a difference in my game. Even though I lost the match, I would say that I played pretty well and it’s good that I’m getting to play against such top players.
Tirtha Mutha: So you started 2024 with a ranking close to 1000 and ended the year around the rank of 600. How do you view your 2024 season?
Vaishnavi Adkar: 2024 was like full of ups and downs. It was a pretty tough year. Not a lot of great performances. But towards the end of the year, especially the second half, I got some good wins and especially that last one week really helped a lot in my ranking.
Tirtha Mutha: Any goals for 2025?
Vaishnavi Adkar: Definitely that would be coming in the top 400 for sure. And yeah, a few more titles.
Tirtha Mutha: Okay. Any aspects of your game that you feel you need to improve to move to the next level?
Vaishnavi Adkar: I feel everything, I need to work on everything. Physical, mental, all the aspects of my game.
Tirtha Mutha: Can you share a bit more details on your support staff that’s behind you?
Vaishnavi Adkar: First of all, my parents, because of whom, like I started playing tennis, and my coach, who has been supporting me like for, I think 10 years now, I’ve been with, I’ve been working with him for 10 years and it’s been a very good journey. And all my sponsors – Lakshya, Hodek, Yonex, Bharat Petroleum, and even Nike India has been helping me a lot with everything. So all of their support is, I would say, very important to, you know, keep it going.
Rapid fire
| Hobbies | Sleeping, doing nothing. In my free time, obviously. |
| Favorite travel destination | Coming back home is always good |
| Favorite players? | Novak Djokovic since the start Women`s – Used to be Serena. Now it’s Sabalenka. |
| Favorite cuisine | Indian any day |
| Favorite home meal? | There’s no Non-Veg at home. I love butter chicken. |
| A song that is on repeat mode for you? | It’s all on my mood. There’s no specific song. |
| A place that you haven’t been to but would love to visit? | Bora Bora. |
| Your best win so far? | Probably winning the title at Ahmedabad. |
| A loss that hurt you the most and why? | I think two years back I lost a match from match point up in Ahmedabad, so that was pretty frustrating. |
| Toughest opponent that you faced so far? | I can’t think of a specific one. Especially like these weeks in India – pretty good players from all across the world have come. |
| If you could play a match at any court in the world, where would it be? | US Open. |