‘ Have self belief to excel at Asiad’

India’s highest ranked women’s singles tennis player Ankita Raina has been in fine form since last year and the 25- yearold will look to extend the momentum at the upcoming Asian Games.

The World No. 181 — her career best ranking — won two ITF $ 25K tournament this year and also earned qualification spots for the two Grand Slams. On Friday, she stretched World No. 93 and second seed Yafan Wang of China in the $ 60K ITF Series event in China before losing 6- 7 ( 2), 4- 6 after two hours and 15 minutes in the quarter- finals.

“I think this is the year where my belief is the strongest in my game and my confidence has gone up. I’ve had good performances this year and I’m going to do my best to continue that. I’ve always had the best performances while playing for my country,” Raina said from China.

The Ahmedabad girl will return home before heading to Jakarta and felt her preparations for the quadrennial event were top notch.

“I’ve been preparing for the Asian Games for more than a year now. There were few aspects that I’ve been working on especially to get prepared for the Asiad. I’ve had good performances from last November and that has helped to take my belief and confidence to a different level. I’ve been playing a couple of tournaments in the South East Asia to get acclimatised to the conditions in Indonesia,” she said.

Apart from Raina, the Indian women’s team comprise of Karman Kaur Thandi, Rutuja Bhosale, Pranjala Yadlapalli, Riya Bhatia and Prarthana Thombare. Karman is following Ankita closely at 198 in the WTA rankings while her training partner in Pune, Rutuja is the next best ranked player at 389.