Sahaja, a native of Khammam is settled in Hyderabad as her parents Yamalapalli Bhavaniprasad and Supriya moved to the city after her father got a job in an engineering college there.
Updated On – 23 March 2024, 06:31 PM
Khammam: Beginning to play tennis at the age of 10, India’s promising professional tennis player Sahaja Yamalapalli, who stunned top seeded American Kayla Day at Mumbai Open this February, is looking for potential sponsors to push her career forward.
Sahaja, a native of Khammam is settled in Hyderabad as her parents Yamalapalli Bhavaniprasad and Supriya moved to the city after her father got a job in an engineering college there. She visited Khammam recently to meet her grandparents and called on district Collector VP Gautham.
With a current Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) singles ranking of 306, she is being trained at Peter Burwash International (PBI) Tennis Academy, Bengaluru. Having three ITF singles titles to her credit she is preparing herself for Billie Jean King Cup (Fed Cup) 2024, a prestigious event for women players in a team format to be held from April 8-13 at Changsha in China.
Sahaja graduated from Sam Houston State University, Huntsville, USA in 2017 on athletic scholarship with Food Science and Nutrition as a major. She was the Southland Conference women’s tennis Student-Athlete of the year 2018, 2019 and 2021 for being top both in studies and sports.
She was also the first women’s tennis player who earned ITA national ranking 110 in Sam Houston State University’s history and also became the first player to ever crack the ITA/NCAA national ranking in her university.
Speaking to Telangana Today, Sahaja informed that she is being supported by Lakshya Sports of Pune at present and is in need of sponsors as nearly Rs 30 lakh incurs in training per annum. “The efforts to secure prospective sponsorship yet to yield result, I will be very thankful if the Telangana government extends financial assistance for my training,” she noted.
The Telangana’s tennis ace stated that she aims to achieve WTA rank 220 this year to get qualified for grand slam tournaments and fulfill her career objective of winning a grand slam singles title quite soon. Coming from a middle-class family, Sahaja initially started training by watching YouTube and paying a fee of Rs 1000, as she could not afford tennis training.
Sahaja, who turned professional in 2021, received critical acclaim from sportswriters for her powerful and aggressive playing style. Defeating world No. 92 Kayla Day and top ranked Ekaterina Makarova boosted her career. If proper financial support is available for training she could achieve better results ruling the tennis arena at the international level and bring laurels to Telangana.
