“The hard work I have put in, especially in the last one year, is really paying off,” says Rithvik Choudary Bollipalli, who partnered Colombia’s Nicolas Barrientos to win the Chile Open, an ATP 250 event in Santiago, after defeating top-seeded Argentine duo of Maximo Gonzalez and Andres Molteni 6-3, 6-2.
The 24-year-old Rithvik from Hyderabad, who became the first-ever Indian to win an ATP title on Latin clay and is the youngest player from the country in the Top 70 of the ATP Rankings, said it was a great win against a team which was in world’s Top 10.
“It is an amazing feeling. I have been working really hard and it is paying off now,” he said.
“Winning on clay is a special feeling for I never played many events on that surface – perhaps high altitude helped me – great to know that I am the first Indian to win a title on Latin clay,” he said.
“My partner is a great guy and very hard working. I just want to keep the momentum going and keep doing the right things,” Rithvik told Sportstar.
“I have been looking for a long-term partner since Arjun’s (Arjun Kadhe) injury. Well, it is difficult to play with different partners frequently,” he said.
“The Australian Open this year was a great experience with a new partner in Ryan Seggerman. It was my maiden Grand Slam and more than thinking that I was playing with someone new and looking at his age, I enjoyed playing there since I grew up watching that Slam,” said Rithvik.
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“He is a great guy and it was awesome to play with him. I had interesting conversations with him and learnt a lot. He said he played in the Australian Open 14 times. He is a fantastic singles player with a different approach for doubles,” he said.
Looking back, Rithvik said the back injury was one of the reasons for him to switch over to doubles, the other being that he felt that he was much better in doubles.
On his Davis Cup debut in a World Group I Playoff tie against Togo in February, he said it had been one of his best experiences. “Winning my match at Delhi in front of a good crowd with Bala (N. Sriram Balaji) whom I always looked up to as a great guy and we get along very well made it even more special,” said Rithvik who admires Andy Murray in singles and Rajeev Ram, Joe Salisburry and Marcelo Melo in doubles.
“The biggest lesson from the Davis Cup was to stay calm and play like I am supposed to. Yes, it is a different kind of feeling and experience from regular tournaments on the circuit,” he said.
Rithvik started his tennis journey under C.V. Nagraj at the School of Power Tennis at RRC (Secunderabad). “He is a very disciplined coach, setting the tone for all those routines every single day. I have a great group of friends with whom I grew up there. I was very fortunate to play with them. It was just amazing,” he recalled.
On his strong points, Rithvik said he would love to watch tennis every single day, and learn what the other players do in certain situations. “I like to soak in all the info of the coaches, do the right things by keeping an open mind, adapting to new conditions with minute changes, if needed – this helped me a lot in the last one year,” he said.
On the reason behind the depth of doubles in Indian tennis, he said, “The two coaches, Raven Klassen and Balachandran Manikkath, are fantastic and the entire support staff including physios Dharmender Pratap Singh and Kiran Kumar have shown us a good pathway to play at the level we want to.”
What is the biggest challenge now? “Well, it gets tough to do the same routine daily for multiple months and years. It can get boring too but we need to stay on top. Breaking into Top 100 to 70 to 50 and 30, these jumps are very tough though it is always exciting but we have to be prepared for the challenges,” Rithvik said.
On his goals, Rithvik said he never really targeted to win a particular tournament. “The realistic goal is to keep improving as a player and in the process, win the events to get the ranking which should help me in playing the tournaments I love to play. Hope, all good things will lead to see this happen,” he said.
Content Source: sportstar.thehindu.com