Had I adapted a bit earlier, things would have been different: Ankita Raina

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Jurmala (Latvia), April 17 (IANS) India's top-ranked singles tennis player Ankita Raina conceded after her loss to Latvia's Jelena Ostapenko in the Billie Jean King Cup World Group play-off match that had she adapted to the Latvian world No. 52's game a bit earlier, "things would probably have been a bit different".

At the end of the day on Friday, India were 0-2 down in the five-match rubber with both Raina and Karman Kaur Thandi losing their singles matches to higher-ranked Latvian opponents, Ostapenko and Anastasija Sevastova, respectively.

"As the first set went through, I understood what she (Ostapenko) was doing and what I needed to change in my game. It was good that I could adapt to her game, but it probably would have been a bit different had I done that (adapted) a bit earlier," said the world's 174th-ranked singles player after losing 2-6, 7-5, 5-7 to the Latvian.

"When you play for your country, you fight for each point and that was seen in the match. I felt that I could have done a bit better in the first set and I did catch up (to win the second set), but Ostapenko has also played such matches before and played at the best level," the Indian, who will take on Anastasija Sevastova in the reverse singles, said at the post-match press conference.

Ostapenko is the winner of the 2017 French Open title.

Raina, whose game had improved several notches this year, added, "I've said I belong to this level and my game has improved. I was very confident going into the match and I did feel that anything could happen. So, I was not thinking too much about the result. But it's natural that when you are representing your country, you do have some nerves."

On the reverse singles match, the Indian said, "It's a new day, a new match. I will be ready and more than prepared and do my recovery that is needed to be ready for the match (against Sevastova)."

For Karman Kaur Thandi, who lost to Sevastova 4-6, 0-6, it was a "huge learning experience playing against a top-50 player for the first time".

"Now, I need to work on my physical aspect going forward. Playing at this level after a couple of years, and also having not played against a top-50 player, the experience was pretty good, especially the intensity was there in the first set but I got broken twice which made the difference," said Thandi.

"If you just look at the first set, I was pretty much there, and it could have gone either side. In the second set, the intensity dropped a little bit from my side, and she (Sevastova) also started playing a little bit more solid."

--IANS

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