Riske ‘excited’ to keep up good run

CHENNAI:  It was in 2019 when Alison Riske shone through after a series of impressive wins on the circuit. One of the highlights of her year was beating then World No 1 Ashleigh Barty in the third round of Wimbledon before going down in three tight sets to Serena Williams in the quarterfinals. It also included a triumph at ‘s-Hertogenbosch apart from reaching the final at Wuhan, a WTA 1000 event. Those run of results propelled her to the WTA Elite Trophy, an end-of-season competition for players ranked between 9 and 19. That in itself was evidence of her improvement. She began the year 48th, she was 18th when the calendar finished.

Her 2020 began promisingly, a run to the quarterfinals at Brisbane before her best performance at Melbourne (4th round). Just when it looked like that upward trajectory was taking off, the calendar came to a halt, thanks to the pandemic. After the tournaments returned, she was down with a nasty foot injury that cost her close to nine months of playing time.

The wins dried up in the first part of 2021 (4-11 losing record) but a steady late-season charge culminated in a third title (Austria). She needed that, more than anything to convince herself that she was past her injury troubles. 2022, though, has been about moving back up the rankings. She has put together a fine sequence of results, which has included a run to the fourth round of US Open. 

She’s now World No 29 and she believes it’s only set to improve in the weeks to come. “Have had a great season,” the top-seed at the Chennai Open told a few mediapersons after a training session at the SDAT tennis stadium on Saturday. “Excited  to keep the momentum going.”

She preferred to focus on the positives when she was asked to reflect on 2019, her breakout season. “At that point, it was the best year of my career,” she said. “Covid hit, then I was out for nine months. This year, I have been healthy and kind of back to where I was in 2019 which is really exciting. I’m healthy and that’s the most important thing for me.” One of the continuing themes in women’s tennis has been the multiple Slam winners in recent seasons (15 different women have won a Major since the beginning of 2017). While some have pointed to that stat to suggest some inconsistency, the 32-year-old says ‘it’s cool’.“I think it’s cool for our sport to have a little bit more of a rotating door, but at the same time we are ready to have that one person kind of represent us, be the figurehead of women’s tennis.”

That figurehead, till last week, was Serena Williams. Riske, who has played doubles with the 23-time Major champion, hopes that her compatriot would stay in the sport. “For me, she will always remain the greatest of all time. I hope she stays involved. In our sport, we need her. She does so much for us. In my mind, she will be the best.”

Saturday’s results (only Indians, qualifying round 1): Liang En-shuo bt Rutuja Bhosale 6-3, 6-2, Justina Mikulskyte bt Riya Bhatia 6-4, 6-0, Yuki Naito bt Lakshmi Prabha Arunkumar 6-4, 6-1, Kyoka Okamura bt Sowjanya Bavisetti 6-4, 6-0, Nao Hibino bt Sai Samhitha Chamarthi 6-1, 6-0.