New Delhi: When this writer spoke to the Indian team ahead of the Billie Jean King Cup Asia/Oceania Group 1 tie in New Delhi, Ankita Raina Clearly pointed out that he did not play singles. She was right. The 33-year-old recently played in the W15 in Nagpur on March 23. However, his last foray in national colors was two years ago and the last win came on 9 April 2024. After the comfortable win, she lost four in a row that week, including a double bagel to China’s Qin Wenzheng.
Last year, non-playing captain Vishal Uppal shifted the focus to youngsters in the singles department. Shrivali Bhamdeepti, Sahaja Yamlapalli and Vedihi Chaudhary. Raina, meanwhile, became the designated doubles choice.This has been the theme this week. Vishnavi Adkar replaced the injured Bhamidipathi and Yamla Palli, Zail Desai played the other singles rubbers.With their backs against the wall and in a must-win position, Appal reverted to his experienced former India No.1. India had to beat Korea 3-0 and Indonesia had to beat Thailand to qualify for the play-offs for the second consecutive year.Recent history has given India reason to believe – they won the last two meetings with Korea (2-1 in 2024 and 2025). But, India had never beaten Korea 3-0 in a team event.The streak, unfortunately for India’s prospects, continued on Saturday. The Indian team defeated Korea 2-1 while the second tie with Indonesia did not go well with Thailand.As a result, India finished third – behind Thailand and Indonesia – with only the top two advancing to the playoffs.If getting off to a strong start was the need of the hour, things didn’t go as planned with the first set going down 0-4 and a 20-point game along the way.After conceding the first set, Raina took the lead in the second set and raced to a 5-3 lead to take the decider. However, 342nd-ranked Dayeon Back staged an impressive fightback to win four straight games, including 16 of the last 23 points.One was that (experience) the other was because the courts are slow. And the way Dion Beck plays, we needed someone who could press it and get to the net,” Appel said.“Also part of the strategy was to put Vaishnavi in against Sehyun Park because, I mean I’ve seen enough of Park and I know how to beat her, we need to bring a little more firepower because she moves a lot of balls. That part of the plan was good.”“Like I said, it’s not about today. We messed up the first day (vs. Thailand). So I mean, look at the idea against Korea earlier in the week that we have to do doubles, no matter what, because I know our doubles team is pretty strong, pretty good.”“And we showed with a dominant win. So I think the strategy today was to press because we knew we had to try and win 3-0 today. And yeah, it didn’t go our way,” he admitted.After losing the first singles match, the rest of the tie became a mere formality. But that meant little to the crowd that had occupied plenty of seats as the sun went down.Top-ranked Indians Vaishnavi Adkar and Suhyun Park gave the crowd much to cheer about in their two-hour and 20-minute match, which Adkar won 7-6, 7-6.In the doubles final, Raina teamed with Rutoja Bhosle to defeat Baek and Yoonhee Lee 6–2, 6–2.
