Back from injury, Myneni focuses on singles
BENGALURU: With an injury lay-off stretching for eight months in 2017, Saketh Myneni is still piecing together his career. At the time when foot injury struck early in 2017, Myneni was in the middle of the purple patch. At 137, he was the highest ranked singles player in the country and had also played in the 2016 US Open.
His return later that year meant that he had to start almost from the scratch. The first half of this year saw him playing lot more qualifiers as he steadily rose back to 312, while his doubles ranking stands at 213. On Tuesday, Myneni who was given a wild card here defeated another wild card entrant Adil Kalyanpur 6-3, 7-6(3) in first round but at 31, the player still believes he can slug it out in singles and hasn’t given doubles a thought despite a huge difference in the rankings.
“Lots of people have been asking me this, but I just want to play more as long as I am focused and can train for the singles. I never focused on rankings, off course you need them to get into Grand Slams, and other higher ranked tournaments but my goal is to see my improvement as a player,” Myneni said, who was given Arjuna Award in 2017. The winner of 2014 Incheon Asian Games mixed doubles gold and a sliver in men’s doubles, Myneni said he doesn’t plan much for future and right now he wants to build on his success this summer.
In July this year came his biggest win when he defeated Mikhail Youzhny in ATP tour President’s Cup in Astana, Kazakhstan in the round of 16. Eventually, though he lost in the quarterfinals there. He won Uzbekistan Futures and was a losing finalist in Kolkata Futures. He reached quarters in one other ATP Challengers making his case for sticking to the singles.