Vaishnavi's topspin forehand gives Indian tennis a different weapon as she targets top 200

CHENNAI: India's women's tennis number one Vaishnavi Adkar says her heavy topspin forehand, an unusual weapon in the women's game in India and Asia, could become the defining feature of her game as the 21-year-old sets her sights on breaking into the world's top 200.

In women's tennis where flat, powerful groundstrokes are commonplace, Adkar's ability to impart heavy topspin gives the ball a higher trajectory and makes it kick up sharply after bouncing.

It forces opponents to adjust their contact point and often pushes them behind the baseline, making it difficult to attack with the same authority.

"The forehand that I have, I have a lot of spin on it, which not a lot of girls, especially in India or Asia, have. It's pretty similar to the one the players have in Europe. So the players here struggle to play against it," Adkar, ranked 344, told PTI in an interview ahead of the WTA 250 Chennai Open.

The Pune-born player says the shot came naturally to her, but turning it into a consistent weapon has required deliberate work with her coaching team.

"Since I started playing tennis, I used to hit the ball really hard. But I think the spin just came naturally with it. To develop it even further and turn it into a weapon, we obviously had to work more on it and fine-tune it.

"So if I work more on it, I can definitely develop it into a bigger weapon in my game and it will help me get more points," she said.

Her rise to the top of Indian women's tennis has been the outcome of a carefully planned transition, including a change of training base from Pune to Bengaluru last year.

After spending nearly eight years training under Kedar Shah from the age of 12, Adkar moved to the Rohan Bopanna Tennis Academy (RBTA) this year, where she has benefited from the experience of coaches M Balachnadran, Rohan, besides the recently added support of Maria Gaidano, who was Argentina's Fed Cup coach for three years.

The change has helped her approach the game with greater structure.

Adkar believes the biggest improvements have come in her physical conditioning, movement and mental strength, areas she felt needed attention to compete against bigger, taller and more powerful European opponents.

"It can be a bit intimidating at first, but you need to believe in yourself. You need to trust your game and the work that you've put in. I have started building that trust and faith in my own game as well," she said.

Her strength and conditioning programme is designed by Surabhi Date, who had also worked with her following an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury in 2021 that required surgery.

Adkar says the combination of a more structured approach to practice and travelling with a coach and physio has helped her bridge the gap with players at higher levels.

"Every practice session that we have, we have specific goals that we want to work on. It's not like we are just doing stuff blindly. There is a reason behind everything that I am doing," she said.

Adkar's rise to India's number one has been built on a series of breakthrough performances this season, beginning with her historic run to the final of the ITF W100 Bengaluru tournament in February, where she became the first Indian woman since Sania Mirza in 2009 to reach a singles final at that level.

She followed it up by winning the ITF W35 Kalaburagi singles title in March, beating experienced compatriot Ankita Raina 7-6(3), 6-4 in the final, and also clinched the doubles crown.

The Kalaburagi triumph propelled her into the world's top 400, having started the year outside the top 600.

She added another strong result with a runner-up finish at the W35 event in Monastir, Tunisia, in October.

While becoming India's number one had been a long-standing ambition, Adkar admits she did not expect to achieve it this year.

"It was definitely one of the goals for a very long time, since I started playing tennis. I wasn't expecting it to happen this year, but things went well for me because of the work that me and my team have been putting in."

Having already achieved that milestone, she has now set her sights on a bigger challenge.

"The next step would be to come closer to the top 200 and get to play the Slams," she said.

Missing out on the Asian Games due to the government's selection policy came as a shock for Adkar, given her form, but she chose to use the disappointment as an opportunity to work on her fitness.

"It was probably just a blessing in disguise. It wasn't really in my control. I did what I could, I performed well, I got my ranking up," she said.

That attitude, she believes, has been central to her progress in a sport where defeats are inevitable.