21-yr old Malaika Rapolu (USA): From not being part of the College team lineup to making the WTA 250 Debut!
Malaika Rapolu received wild card to the WTA 250 ATX Open main draw on the back of winning the ITF W50 title in Austin in 2024. The 21-yr old had turned pro in Q4 2024 after graduating from Univ of Texas.
On Monday, Malaika lost her WTA 250 Debut match against Nuria Parrizas-Diaz (ESP, 107) by scoreline of 2-6 4-6.
Following her debut, Malaika Rapolu sat down with the media to discuss her experience, the transition from college tennis to the pro tour, and her future aspirations.
Q: Thoughts on the match?
A: Throughout the first set, I was so nervous with everything because I’ve never played a match like that before and there’s just so many things like the ball kids, the screen in the back and I’m just really not used to having all that in a match.
I told myself to relax a little bit and I think I did a little bit. But yes, I think definitely when I was up 3-2 and 4-3, I was nervous, to be honest. I just didn’t play the way I wanted to.
She’s definitely a lot more experienced. She’s played many of these matches before, so she knows what she’s doing and she played better in the tight situations, especially in the second set.
Q: What are you trying to take away from this experience today?
A: I really do think I can play at this level. I just need to keep working and the more I can play these type of matches, the better for me. Just getting used to playing on a stage like this.
Q: Is there one specific thing you feel could have changed the outcome?
A: When I was up 3-2 and 4-3, I served pretty poorly. I double faulted twice in both of those games and that was definitely from the nerves. If I had just served a little bit better in those moments and played a little bit more free, then I think we could still be playing a third set right now.
Q: How does this experience help your learning curve as you transition to the pro tour?
A: Getting this experience and the exposure was huge. I need to thank DropShot and everyone for giving me the opportunity after winning that W50 to be able to come and play here.
I need to keep working hard to be able to get opportunities like today to kind of touch the big players.
Q: How did your four years at the University of Texas prepare you for professional tennis?
A: In my 4 years in college, there was definitely a lot of ups and downs. When you look on paper, you see that I won two national championships and All American and all of that.
But people really don’t see, how much I struggled in those four years. Just to be able to come here was a big thing for me.
Q: What is the biggest thing you’ll take away from this match?
A: I’m not that far behind from the players here. I just need to keep working hard, keep playing matches, keep getting more confident and just keep building. That’s the biggest thing.
Q: What does your path forward look like?
A: My plan is to go back and train for a week. There’s a few tournaments in Canada that I was looking to go play. After that there are two W50s in Dominican Republic, so I was gonna go play those.
Just getting more matches and more experience. I think that’s the biggest thing for me right now because I really haven’t been able to play that many tournaments since college.
I’m just starting. So, definitely getting as many matches as I can right now is the biggest thing.
Q: Is life as a professional tennis player what you expected?
A: Honestly, no, it’s definitely a lot harder than I thought it was gonna be.
I was actually talking with my coach about this earlier. I think a lot of people just see that you’re playing at WTA 250 and all the good things, but no one really sees, the hard work and everything that goes behind it. How much you have to grind, at the ITFs and everything to be able to get to this level.
I think definitely it’s harder, a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. But, I’ve been through a lot of challenges so far, so, I’m looking forward to it.
Q: What was your game plan coming into this match?
A: There was a game plan that my coach gave me before playing. To be completely honest, once I started playing the match, I couldn’t think about any of that.
I got here 4 days ago and I’ve been practicing with some of these other players here. Everyone here is amazing. So I’ve just been practicing with them, trying to get more exposure to that as well, to prepare for today.
Q: How did your career as a student-athlete prepare you for a professional career?
A: In college, you’re juggling a million things. You have to get to class, you have to get to practice, you have to make sure your grades are good. And on top of that, you’re traveling, you have to win matches, and you’re not just playing for yourself. You’re also playing for a team. So, you don’t want to let them down. So I think there’s just a lot of different things going on.
It’s very different from pro because everyone here – the only thing they’ve known their whole life is tennis, tennis, tennis. So I think definitely, the best thing about college was that it prepared me as a person in general.
I think that really sets you up for being able to play better on the pro tour knowing that there’s other things in life besides just tennis.
Q: How does your family support your tennis career?
A: My dad actually was never a coach, but he did coach me. So he picked up the racket when I did and he would watch YouTube videos.
We would watch tennis online and on TV and he would just pick up things from that. I would just go on court with him every day when I was a junior and he would just feed me a million balls.
We were not super educated on tennis. I was never coached by a highly skilled coach or anything like that. My father is the one that brought me to the point where I’m at right now.
And then obviously my coaches at Uni of Texas but until college, my father was what I had as coach.
Q: You mentioned about things being hard in college
The biggest thing that I struggled with was that in my 2nd year, I was not even picked for the playing line-up. So that was a big thing for me. I would grind, I would work really hard but I guess wasn’t good enough at that moment. So for me that was kind of like heartbreaking almost.
Tennis at that point was like everything for me. I just wanted my hard work to show. So not being able to play was a big challenge.
Photos from her WTA 250 ATX Open Debut
