Kiwi Contingent Exits AO after Das Second Round Loss

Aishi Das was beaten in the second round of the junior girls’ championship singles at the Australian Open this morning, but in spite of her loss can certainly leave the tournament encouraged by her performances against higher ranked opponents.

Das, New Zealand’s last hope at the Australian Open, was beaten 6-3 6-2 by Anna Pushkareva, whose International Tennis Federation (ITF)  ranking is 39 compared to Das at 106. On route to today’s second round match, Das,18, won two rounds of qualifying including beating the highest seed in the qualifying draw, Ada Kumru of Turkey and then winning against the tournament seventh seed Anastasija Cvetkovic of Serbia in the first round of the main draw.

With the temperature forecast to reach 45 degrees Celsius in Melbourne today, play started two hours earlier at 9am and it was already in the early-20s when Das and Pushkareva walked on court. Both play a similar style of tennis with strong serves and big ground-strokes. However, it was Pushkareva who took control early in the first set racing out to a 4-0 lead by serving well and with her aggressive court position pouncing on any short shots often catching Das on the back foot. The Kiwi never stopped fighting and by the fifth game of the set she was keeping herself in the baseline exchanges longer to hold serve at 4-1. She held again in the seventh game to get to 2-5 and then in her best game of the set broke Pushkareva to get to 3-5. Pushkareva broke straight back taking the first set at 6-3 in 32 minutes.

The second set followed a similar pattern, with Das broken twice as Pushkareva raced to a 4-0 lead. A down-the-line winner and swinging volley gave Das a well-earned break in the fifth game and she followed this up with a strong service game to trail 2-4. Her opponent did not falter and won the next two games take the set 6-2.

Matt Alexander Tennis New Zealand’s national development coach and coach of Das, says Das, a strong competitor was “gutted” with her loss. “But I hope she takes a lot of belief from her tennis over the past month during which she has beaten a lot of higher ranked players including three girls ranked in the world top 25. She really has had a great month,” he says.

Alexander says that during her game today she tried to make adjustments, including to her shot depth, to pull the game around. Das was hitting the ball hard and Alexander believes Das definitely has the potential to  even “go up a few gears”. “The difference in playing at this level is that the ball comes back hard and that much quicker. Coming from New Zealand we have to travel to get this sort of competition,” he says.

He is unsure of where Das will play her next tournament. “We have a few days off before we come home and we’ll then have the discussion about our plans which could be continuing to play in the juniors or playing other events,” Alexander says.

He was impressed with how she handled playing on the biggest stage of her career to date  including how she played in front of the large supportive crowd for her first main draw round at a Grand Slam.

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