Varun Verma is ranked top-150 in the World Junior Rankings and has been rising up the charts over the past year. As he makes his Mens Tour debut, ITD had the opportunity to speak to Varun.

This interview captures Varun Verma’s thoughts on his ATP Challenger debut, his journey in tennis, and his future plans, including his commitment to Yale University.

Gopi: Let’s start with your ATP Challenger debut against former ATP Top 100 player Kimmer Coppejans. How was the experience?

Varun Verma: To start off, it was a great experience playing this event. I had to play against the second seed, who was around 300 in the ATP rankings. He was, of course, a former top 100 ATP player. So, it was a great experience, playing in front of my family and friends.

I knew the conditions quite well. It’s my home court, so I was quite excited, honestly. It was my first men’s professional match—until now, I’ve just played juniors. So, it was a great experience playing one of the best players.

Gopi: What was your game plan coming into the match, and are there aspects you feel you could have done better?

Varun Verma: When I saw the draw and realized I was up against the second seed, I told myself, “Okay, he’ll be the better player today.” So, I just told myself to go out there and enjoy the match. Secondly, as I started playing, I tried to analyze his weaknesses and strengths.

From my side, the whole goal was to focus on my positioning for each shot and always have a clear mindset before each point, no matter what the score was. Even if I was losing 0-6, 0-5, I wanted to play every point with intent and proper decision-making.

Gopi: Any thing that could have been done better?

Varun Verma: Maybe I could have increased my first-serve percentage. I started the match slightly on the back foot, getting broken in the first game. But slowly, my serve started getting better, and I was getting some free points through my serve. However, as the first set progressed and the match got deeper, my first-serve percentage dropped quite a bit, and he was really attacking my second serve. That put extra pressure on me in my service games. So, I think definitely improving my first-serve percentage would have helped.

Gopi: Taking a step back, what got you into tennis?

Varun Verma: I started tennis when I was 3 or 4 years old. It all began thanks to my eldest sister. She’s six years older than me. My parents were experimenting with which sports she would like to play, and she got enrolled in tennis. She loved the sport, so my parents decided to put me in tennis as well. That’s how the journey began, 14 years ago.

Gopi: Did your family have any background in tennis?

Varun Verma: As I mentioned, my older sister played tennis at a professional level. She even won the Fenesta Girls title. But in terms of my parents, no—they’re into cricket, not tennis.

Gopi: You’ve grown up mostly in Europe. Can you talk about why you moved there and which locations you grew up in?

Varun Verma: I moved to Switzerland when I was 10 due to my parents’ work. We moved there in September 2017, and I basically grew up there. I moved back to India in July 2024, so we were there for almost seven years. The experience was amazing—growing up in Europe, and in Federer’s country, Switzerland. I lived most of my life in Geneva.

It was great. I used to have chances to meet professional players like Gael Monfils and Stan Wawrinka, and even trained with them. It was a really humbling experience, and I loved it.

Gopi: You had a top 100 juniors win in Istanbul and have been rising steadily over the past year. Can you talk about your good runs in Turkey and Greece?

Varun Verma: Honestly, I started competing in ITF juniors only from last April, which is not even a year now. Before that, I used to compete mostly in Swiss national tournaments, and I was getting really good results there. I was playing against men in the national tournaments in Switzerland and getting good results against them.

So, I decided it was the right time to shift into ITF juniors. Luckily, I got a breakthrough in my first tournament in Turkey in April last year. I got through two rounds of qualifying and beat some really good top players who are now top 100 or top 50 in the world. That was a really good breakthrough tournament for me.

Following that, I started traveling quite a lot for tournaments. I mostly shifted my focus from Swiss tennis to ITF tournaments. After that, I also had two good tournaments in Greece. First, I lost in the finals, and the next week, I won the title. These three tournaments really helped my ranking shoot up from about 2,900 to 500.

Since then, I’ve been consistently performing at a decent level on the tour, which has helped me climb to about 150 now.

Gopi: What does your schedule look like for the next 1-2 months?

Varun Verma: As of now, I’m planning to go to Nonthaburi for the ITF Juniors J200 and J300 tournaments in a couple of weeks. I’ll be there for two weeks. After that, I’ll have to shift my focus back to some studies, as I have my final exams coming up in April. Following that, I’ll start preparing for Junior Wimbledon.

Gopi: Are you considering US College tennis or going pro?

Varun Verma: I’ve verbally committed to a US college. I’ll be heading over to Yale University and playing for the Yale Bulldogs starting this fall, starting this August.

Photo by Ranjith from Ranzi Sports Photography