17 year old Kriish Tyagi pleasantly surprised many in the Indian Tennis community. Ranked in the Top 50 of the ITF World Junior Rankings, Tyagi hadn’t won a single ATP point coming into this week, but managed to bag 8 in one week at the ITF M25 Ahmedabad Open.
Handed a wildcard in the qualifying, Tyagi notched up three impressive wins, including one over Olympian Vishnu Vardhan, to enter the main draw. He continued his giant-killing run in the main draw as well, beating the likes of Top 600 Yanki Erel, Nitin Kumar Sinha and two-time National Champion Siddharth Vishwakarma. Tyagi eventually lost to Aryan Shah in the semi-final.
We caught up with Tyagi after his superb run. Excerpts below –
Q) Thoughts on the semis against Aryan
KT – It was a great match. Aryan is a great, experienced player. He’s reached this level in quite a few tournaments before. So I knew he would be a good opponent. Tough conditions, my body didn’t support that much too.
Q) You got your first ATP point this week. How does it feel?
KT – Feels good to be a pro player now (laughs). 8 ATP points in one week is not bad.
Q) You played 7 matches in 7 days. How’s your body feeling?
KT – Extremely dead. It’s so tough to play here. All my matches were in the middle of the day, in extreme heat. Today my body just wasn’t there. I wasn’t able to reach for balls. Couldn’t push the body. Lot of fatigue today.
Q) What are your learnings from playing on the pro circuit so far?
KT – It’s a total different game compared to juniors. Here people tend to serve big and tend to finish the rallies fast, at least in this and other M25’s I have played in India. Whereas in the Juniors we kept rallying for 6-7 balls. One thing I learnt is I need to have a very good serve, 1st shot. Returns should be good. And I need to maintain very good accuracy in my shots.
Q) Plan for the upcoming months
KT – I’ll play the M25 in Bengaluru. Then train a bit. Then go to Thailand and Malaysia for some junior tournaments. Then I go to France to play the Junior Roland Garros.