Ankita Raina

Ankita Ravinderkrishan Raina (born 11 January 1993) is an Indian professional tennis player.

Following a promising junior career, Raina made her first professional appearance in 2009, at a small ITF tournament in Mumbai.

In 2010, she continued to participate in local ITF events with limited success.

She has notable wins over 2011 US Open champion Samantha Stosur, Wimbledon finalist Sabine Lisicki, former world No. 5 Sara Errani, and multiple doubles grand slam winner Barbora Strýcová.

Raina was born in the Indian state of Gujarat to Kashmiri Pandit parents Lalita Raina and Ravinder Kishen Raina.

She was born and brought up in Ahmedabad before moving to Pune, Maharashtra at the age of 14 as Pune had a better infrastructure and opportunities to develop professional tennis players; the decision was made based on her performance at the Asians 14 and under masters tournament in Melbourne, where she placed second.

Raina briefly studied at Brihan Maharashtra and is fluent in Hindi, Kashmiri, Gujarati, and English.

At the national events, Raina has represented her home state Gujarat.

Her idols growing up were Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Serena Williams, and Sania Mirza.

Raina trains at the Hemant Bendrey Tennis Academy at the PYC Hindu Gymkhana in Pune.

Raina started playing tennis at the age of five.

From a young age she has been coached by Hemant Bendrey, who recognized her strong discipline and mentality.

Raina's 2011 season saw her advance to three ITF Circuit finals in doubles, winning one with countrywoman Aishwarya Agrawal.

In 2012, she won her first professional singles title in New Delhi and won three more in doubles.

This was followed by a few years of mediocre results on the ITF Women's Circuit.

Raina won two matches at the Mumbai Open, advancing to the quarterfinal.

This would turn out to be her breakthrough tournament.

Raina has also won gold medals in the women's singles and mixed-doubles events at the 2016 South Asian Games, and a bronze medal in singles at the 2018 Asian Games.

Raina is one of only two women representing India who have won a WTA Tour-level title.

Playing for India Fed Cup team, Raina has a win–loss record of 30–24.

Since 2018, she has regularly been the Indian number one in both singles and doubles.

Raina has won one title on the WTA Tour and one WTA 125 tournament (both in doubles), along with 11 singles and 25 doubles titles on the ITF Circuit.

In April 2018, she entered the top 200 in the singles rankings for the first time, becoming only the fifth player representing India to achieve this feat.

In April 2018, she reached a ranking of world No. 181, after winning a $25k title, becoming the fifth Indian national to crack to the top-200 ladies singles rankings, following Nirupama Sanjeev, Sania Mirza, Shikha Uberoi, and Sunitha Rao.

In August 2018, Ankita won the bronze medal in the Asian Games at Jakarta, Indonesia in singles event.

Raina and Sania Mirza are the only players representing India to have won a singles medal at the Asian Games.

Later that year, she won the biggest doubles title of her career at the Taipei Challenger, partnering with compatriot Karman Kaur Thandi.

Following a loss at the Australian Open, Raina won a $25k title in Singapore, with a solid win over Arantxa Rus in the final.

At the Kunming Open, she got her first top-100 win, defeating Samantha Stosur, former US Open champion and top-10 player, scoring the biggest win of her career.

At the French Open, Raina lost her first qualifying match to well-known American youngster Coco Gauff in two tight sets, despite playing well.

She went on to reach the second qualifying rounds of both the Wimbledon Championships and the US Open, losing tight three-setters in both tournaments.

In October 2019, Raina entered the top 150 doubles rankings for the first time, after reaching the finals of the Suzhou Ladies Open with partner Rosalie van der Hoek.

She is now coached by Arjun Kadhe, who is also her trainer and hitting partner.

Raina had a disappointing result at the Australian Open, albeit she was unwell due to the Australian bushfires.

However, Raina found further doubles success by winning two back-to-back ITF titles in Nonthaburi alongside Bibiane Schoofs; followed by reaching her first WTA Tour semifinal at the Thailand Open alongside Rosalie.

This gave Raina a new career-high ranking of No. 119 in doubles.

She also won two singles titles early on in 2020, one in Nonthaburi, and the other in Jodhpur, India.

Raina then helped India advance to the Fed Cup World Group 2 playoffs for the first time in history in April 2020 in Dubai, along with Sania Mirza, Rutuja Bhosale, Riya Bhatia and Sowjanya Bavisetti.

In the Fed Cup, Raina had put up a good fight and won the first set 6–1 against China's top player Wang Qiang, but lost the match in three tight sets.

Raina returned to competition at the resumption of the tour in September after a long hiatus due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic; she suffered early exits in ITF tournaments she played in after the break.