“Pros is totally different compared to Juniors” – 17 year old Kriish Tyagi after unexpected Ahmedabad semis run

17 year old Kriish Tyagi pleasantly surprised many in the Indian Tennis community. Ranked in the Top 50 of the ITF World Junior Rankings, Tyagi hadn’t won a single ATP point coming into this week, but managed to bag 8 in one week at the ITF M25 Ahmedabad Open.

Handed a wildcard in the qualifying, Tyagi notched up three impressive wins, including one over Olympian Vishnu Vardhan, to enter the main draw. He continued his giant-killing run in the main draw as well, beating the likes of Top 600 Yanki Erel, Nitin Kumar Sinha and two-time National Champion Siddharth Vishwakarma. Tyagi eventually lost to Aryan Shah in the semi-final.

We caught up with Tyagi after his superb run. Excerpts below –

Q) Thoughts on the semis against Aryan

KT – It was a great match. Aryan is a great, experienced player. He’s reached this level in quite a few tournaments before. So I knew he would be a good opponent. Tough conditions, my body didn’t support that much too.

Q) You got your first ATP point this week. How does it feel?

KT – Feels good to be a pro player now (laughs). 8 ATP points in one week is not bad.

Q) You played 7 matches in 7 days. How’s your body feeling?

KT – Extremely dead. It’s so tough to play here. All my matches were in the middle of the day, in extreme heat. Today my body just wasn’t there. I wasn’t able to reach for balls. Couldn’t push the body. Lot of fatigue today.

Q) What are your learnings from playing on the pro circuit so far?

KT – It’s a total different game compared to juniors. Here people tend to serve big and tend to finish the rallies fast, at least in this and other M25’s I have played in India. Whereas in the Juniors we kept rallying for 6-7 balls. One thing I learnt is I need to have a very good serve, 1st shot. Returns should be good. And I need to maintain very good accuracy in my shots.

Q) Plan for the upcoming months

KT – I’ll play the M25 in Bengaluru. Then train a bit. Then go to Thailand and Malaysia for some junior tournaments. Then I go to France to play the Junior Roland Garros.