The Rise of Karman Kaur Thandi: India’s Tennis Prodigy

(September 6, 2023) Karman Kaur Thandi was eight years old when she held a tennis racquet for the first time, given to her by her father, Chetanjit Singh Tandi at a summer camp. This was around the time when Sania Mirza had become an Indian phenomenon, and countless young girls around the country wanted to be just like her. Karman was no different, she continues to idolise two stars – Maria Sharapova and Mirza. And just like her idol, she began her career in style, quickly rising to fame as the princess of Indian tennis. Her most recent win is the singles title at the ITF W60 Evansville tournament in the USA, which makes her the second Indian woman to bag a professional title in the US. Now 25 years old, Karman has two W60 titles, despite an ill-timed shoulder injury that set her back for nine moKarman Kaur Thandinths in 2019. It has sent shooting up the WTA rankings, at 210, she is the second-best ranked Indian afer Ankita Raina, who stands at 200.

Indian tennis player Karman Kaur Thandi

Early Achievements and Professional Training

Karman was briefly the Indian number one in singles and has held WTA rankings of 196 (singles) and 180 (doubles). Thandi is also the sixth Indian female tennis player to enter the top 200 of the WTA rankings, joining an elite club that incluedes Nirupama Sanjeev, Sania Mirza, Shikha Uberoi, Sunitha Rao and most recently, Ankita Raina. Thandi has represented India in the Fed Cup and holds four doubles titles and three singles titles on the ITF Circuit.

A few weeks after she joined that fateful summer camp, Karman went on to win the Under-10 tournaments. Her father, who had hoped she would have a career in sport, moved her to a professional academy for better training, despite financial constraints. At the time, she was a student at Ryan International in Delhi’s Vasant Kunj. “The school was very helpful. She would get a waiver in required minimum attendance, notes and extra classes,” her father recalled, in an interview. “When in Delhi, she would go to practice in the morning before school. At times she would go for practice directly from school.”

Transition to International Success

With professional training to hone her skills, Karman participated in the All India Tennis Association events. Her parents stood with her, and Karman’s mother has travelled with her across the globe for training and tournaments. “I was a very average player for a long period of time. I was not a promising junior – so there were no expectations on me to make it big,” Karman said in an interview. “For a very long time, making the quarters or semis of $15k was a very big moment fo rme and my family.” She stayed at the $15k for a long time, seeing it as a chance to hone her skills and gain experience.

Then, she began training in Vienna and “unexpectedly made the jump” into the Challengers. Her rank shot up to around 280 and that’s when things changed. “Suddenly, I was close to playing the Wimbledon and the US Open qualies.” Another turning point came with the arrival of a mentor – Mahesh Bhupati. “He is a great mentor and very practical. Pressure is a privilge,” she says. As she participated in the Australian Open Juniors, it was Mahesh who introduced her to the legendary Patrick Jean Andre Mouratoglou, who coached Serena Williams from June 2012 to 2022. “I don’t know if Mahes told Patrick that he should have a look at my game. I was playing the three-quarters there. I was about to win and move into the quarters but I lost the match.” She did, however, catch Patrick’s attention, and he took her under his wing.

This was in 2016 and Karman began training in France at the Mouratoglou Tennis Academy. Suddenly, she was rubbing shoulders with the top 50, and top 100 players, learning from them in every way she could. “That’s the advantage,” Karman said. “You get to train under the top players. For me, it was Aliza Cornet, who was very positive, Natalia Vikhlyantseva, “who is a very good friend of mine,” she says. “Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova was another player- all these are top 100 players and friends now, too.”

Training in Europe was very different from training in India. In Delhi, she had had to work her way around school, for starters. “In terms of infrastructure, in France, everything is in the same place, so the atmosphere for training becomes systematic. Whereas in Delhi, my tennis practice is somewhere, then I have to drive elsewhere to fitness, everything is at a different place and I spend a lot of time on the road.” The setup in France, she found, made for more systematic coaching, too. “The coaches understand everything about you, right from training to recovery needs. Everybody communicates, from physios to trainers to coaches. They know every aspect of the player. They make you very comfortable and build a relationship with you.”

Overcoming Challenges and Ongoing Pursuits

In 2019, just as her career was on the rise, a shoulder injury set her back by nearly a year. She was at the Australian Open Senior Slam when she began feeling pain in her shoulder. “It took me nine months to come back and I can say that the work and patience had fruitful results,” Karman explains. That year, she was also inducted into the Virat Kohli Foundation, as part of its Athlete Development Program. A photo of the six-foot-tall Karman standing next to Virat went viral, getting nearly 50 million views. She laughs as she recalls, “It wasn’t that big of a deal but the media made it a very big deal!” Her height, she says, has always been an advantage, in terms of “power on the serve and reach on the balls.”

These days, she trains under Aditya Sachdeva at the RoundGlass Tennis Academy. In 2022, having bounced back from her injury and the lull brought about by the pandemic, Karman participated in the ITF Women’s Tournament in Thailand, and in 2023, won the ITF W60 Title in the USA, beating Ukraine’s fourth-ranked Yuliia Starodubteva.

Karman continues to follow a rigorous fitness routine and spends over two hours in the gym, apart from her training sessions. “My cheat meal is chocolates, I have to really work to resist them,” the Global Indian smiles. “And in McDonald’s, ending with a McFlurry is great!” After having found success so young, then being forced to retire due to her injury, her advice to young people is this: “Trust the process. If you’re working hard, you have to trust in yourself. Believe in yourself and belive that you’re the right track and things will fall into place. There is nothing anyone can take away from you if you have the work ethic.”

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