Gen-Next in focus: Kriish Tyagi steps into the big league

Kriish Tyagi, India’s top-ranked junior player, is No. 44 on the ITF World Junior Tennis Tour and has seven singles titles to his name. But having turned 18 in April, he is now in his final year competing as a junior. The young player from Sarjapur, Bengaluru, now finds himself at a defining crossroads — where the river of junior tennis meets the vast, uncharted ocean of the senior circuit.

While a strong finish in his final showing at the Junior Grand Slams remains important, Kriish isn’t afraid to make sacrifices for the bigger picture — which is why, after completing his Class 12 exams last month and facing limited clay-court training options in India, he and coach Harsha Lingappa chose to skip the French Open this year.

“The quality of clay courts in Europe is something you don’t get in India. I don’t feel my game is ready for that kind of clay. It’s just tough to get a hang of it when you go for tournaments,” Kriish told  Sportstar.

He is, however, looking forward to Wimbledon and the US Open. “Playing on grass courts is mainly about hand skills, slices, volleys and serves, and I feel I’m good at that. As far as the US Open is concerned, I’ve won all my titles on hard courts. So, I’m confident about that surface,” said Kriish.

Looking to build his ATP ranking, Kriish has also been adding more Futures events to his calendar — a move that’s already showing results. He reached the semifinals as a qualifier at a $30,000 tournament in Ahmedabad and followed it up with another semifinal finish at a $15,000 event in Tashkent.

Once a swimming enthusiast, Kriish took up tennis at the age of 10 during his after-school lessons. Sapna, Kriish’s mother, has been a huge pillar of strength for him as his father, Ajay, works in the port sector in Jeddah, while his elder brother, Akash, is employed at Procter & Gamble in Pennsylvania.

When a young Kriish, inspired after watching a match between Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal on TV, told his mother about his desire to give tennis a try, she didn’t discourage him despite knowing well the tough road ahead for Indian tennis players.

“I just told him to be prepared and work very hard — don’t worry about the results. You have to be ready for all the ups and downs,” recalled Sapna.

While other top Indian juniors, such as Manas Dhamne and Maaya Rajeshwaran Revathi, went abroad to train, Kriish chose to stay in India, joining the Harsha Lingappa Tennis Academy in Bengaluru in 2021.

“I saw Kriish for the first time in 2021 at an ITF tournament in Nepal,” said coach Harsha. “He was a very gritty player. He wanted to win the match but didn’t know how to do it — strategy or technique-wise. It was easy for me to train this kid because he gave his 100 per cent on the court. We worked completely on his serve, his forehand, added a bit of strategy, and created a weapon out of it.”

A few months before appearing for his Class 12 exams via the National Institute of Open Schooling, Kriish received an offer from a US college to play on the NCAA circuit — a path many young tennis players around the world have taken.

However, whether he takes that route will depend on how the coming months unfold.

“At the moment, I’m signed up with Texas A&M University, but I feel if I do something big — like maybe get into a Grand Slam or perform really well at the men’s level — I’m going to take a one-year break, train more, and try to see if I can go further up before rushing to college,” said Kriish.