After extra set,Rutuja goes the extra mile

Shortly after winning her doubles match at the ITF Juniors,Rutuja Bhosle asks her partner,Shri Vaishnavi Reddy,to start hitting balls at her. When Reddy grows weary after a few rallies,Rutuja asks the two players whom she has defeated — Sai Samhita and Amrita Mukherjee — to take her place. Hitting simultaneously against two players,Rutuja plays powerfully on both sides of the court and works up a sweat. Based on the intensity of her afternoon practice session,it seems hard to believe that the doubles match wasn’t her only match of the day. Earlier in the morning,she had triumphed 4-6,6-2,6-4 in a gruelling three-setter quarterfinal match against Mahita Reddy. However,it was the fact that she was pulled to three sets that made Rutuja go the extra step.

“The last time I had played Mahita,I had won 6-2 6-0. So it wasn’t a good feeling to struggle. I noticed in the match that I was hitting a lot of balls straight down the middle of the court. By playing with two players,I was forcing myself to be able to play accross the court as well,” says the 15-year-old,who only last month won the Senior Nationals.

Rutuja’s work for the day,however,isn’t done. A member of the nine-player Fed Cup camp — her first — in a couple of hours she starts a three-hour evening practice regime under coach Enrico Piperno. The schedule seems hard but Rutuja says she just about manages. “We have three sessions for the day. One between 11 to 1 in the morning,then 3 to 5 in the evening and then between 6 to 9. After the 9pm session,I just collapse,” she jokes.

Of course for the last couple of days,Rutuja hasn’t been attending the morning and afternoon sessions as she was taking part in the ITF Juniors. Because of the schedule,Rutuja was hoping to get a wildcard,but with only three wildcards available for a player in a season,she decided to pass on the opportunity and make her way through qualifiers. “There are a couple of ITF Futures in Pune that I am keen on playing. That is my home and I know the courts there. I would rather get a wildcard there,” she says.