“Goal is to reach the Junior French Open main draw” – 16-yr Arnav Papakar

16-yr old Arnav Papakar was given the wild card into the ATP PMRDA Powered MahaOpen ATP Challenger 100 Men’s Championship. He played against ATP 382 Matthew Dellavedova and lost by a score line of 2-6 3-6. It was a wonderful exposure for the young lad. 

Indian Tennis Daily had an opportunity to speak to Arnav on his match and on 2025 goals.

Thoughts on your match against the ATP top 400 player Matthew Dellavedova today.

Matthew was very consistent and mentally strong. His serve was not that good but his ground strokes were very consistent. He wasn’t missing at all and I missed a lot of balls. But yeah I lost my service games on deuce.

What was the game plan coming in and what were the key moments from your perspective?

My game plan was to swing on my forehand. I was hitting hard on my forehand but I was missing a lot. Key moments were that I constructed the points very well and but was missing the final ball, the short ball where I should have won the point.

You won the national games medal for Maharashtra last week. How was that experience?

It was actually pretty good. I played the first singles against Delhi. I won the third set 6-2 and we won the match and then semifinals we played against Tamil Nadu. I won my singles match but my teammate lost in the singles and doubles, it was pretty close.

They lost in the super tie-break. So it was good.

You are in the top 150 of the ITF junior ranking now after having been as high as 109. What are your goals for 2025?

My first goal in 2025 is to reach the main draw of Junior Roland Garros and my long term goal of 2025 is reaching the quarter-finals and semi-finals of junior Grand Slam.

How do you review your game? What do you think are the strengths and where do you need to improve further?

I think my strength is my serve and I need to improve on my final ball, the short ball. I should  finish that point and I should work on that.

Can you talk about the team behind you in terms of coach, physio and academy?

So today with me was Victor, he’s my fitness coach and Sandeep, he’s my Tennis coach. Yeah and both are very supportive and today they were like pushing for me and they’re pretty positive about the match.

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