From 2020, the Australian Open tennis tournament organizers have been taking steps to bring young tennis stars from different countries to Melbourne to participate in the tournament and get the feel of the Grand Slam event firsthand. The Asia-Pacific Elite U-14 Trophy was held in Melbourne from 25th to 27th as a part of the Australian Open Tennis Series.
5 best players in U14 category from Asia and 8 players each from Australia, New Zealand and Pacific Oceania were selected for this tournament. A total of 16 people were selected in this category, 8 in the boys’ category and 8 in the girls’ category. In the boys category, 14-year-old Arnav Babarkar from Pune, India, and 13-year-old Mayarajeshwaran Revathi from Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, in the girls category were selected to play in the Asia-Pacific Elite U-14 Trophy.
In the round-robin format, Arnav Babarkar won the boys’ title by defeating Cunanan Pandaratorn of Settle Thailand 6-3, 6-0 in the final round. Meanwhile, Maya Rajeshwaran Revathi completed the streak with 5th place. In the first match, Maya Rajeshwaran lost 3-6, 1-6 to Japan’s Hikariyamamoto. However, in the 2nd match, she defeated Mia Chang from French Polynesia in straight sets 6-2, 6-2. In the last match she battled against Hong Kong’s Jiun Oh but lost 6-7, 3-6.
Due to this, Maya Rajeshwaran Revathi was forced to play in the 5th to 8th place match. In this, she beat New Zealand’s Yashvita Reddy 6-3, 6-2 in straight sets and Australia’s Jennifer in straight sets 6-5, 7-5 and took the 5th position.
Maya Rajeshwaran Revathi has won the national championship in Under-14 and Under-16 competitions. At the Asian Junior Tour Championship held in Karnataka at the end of last year, Mayarajeshwaran Revathi had defeated Tiya Ramesh of Sakama land in the singles category. Meanwhile, in the doubles category, Chandigarh had won the trophy along with Nitha Ruhil. Due to her outstanding performance, Maya is ranked No. 1 in the Under-14 category and No. 4 in the Under-16 category in the Indian tennis arena.
Maya’s father Rajeshwaran is very fond of tennis. He is used to watching high-profile matches on television and is inspired by those games to introduce the game of tennis to his daughter Maya. Maya started picking up a tennis racket at the age of 8, and with proper guidance and good training, started racking up wins in a short span of time. Maya trained at the Rogan Bopanna Tennis Academy in Bengaluru for a while and then returned to her native place to focus on her training.
Maya Rajeshwaran Revathi has won the title 5 times in Asian competitions. He has won the title of National Champion in U-12, U-14, U-16 categories. She has also won the Tamil Nadu Tennis Association’s Emerging Young Player Award. Although currently ranked 5th in the Asia-Pacific Elite U-14 Trophy, qualifying for the series was not an easy task. Maya has been given the opportunity to play in international level series at a young age. This could help him in a big way in his future tennis career.
