Ankita bags year's first singles title

Ankita Raina

Indian tennis player Ankita Raina yesterday won her first singles title of the 2019 season and eighth overall after trampling top seed Arantxa Rus in straight sets in the final of the USD 25,000 event in Singapore.

Coming into the tournament after competing at the Australian Open Qualifiers, Ankita demolished World No. 122 and the Dutch top seed 6-3, 6-2 in one hour and 23 minutes. The 50 points earned from the title triumph are likely to catapult Ankita to a career-high singles rank of 168 when the new WTA list is issued on Monday.

"I've been working on my serve for a long while now and I think it's starting to help. I also feel there's more power in the strokes. It definitely helped playing the Grand Slam as the first tournament of the year. It gave a lot of positivity and self belief," Ankita said. "Even though I was a bit disappointed that I didn't qualify for the Australian Open since I expected that but I was grateful that I had reached where once I used to imagine I would be playing."

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