India’s national women’s table tennis champion Sreeja Akula seems to be on an expedited mission, and she’s ready to go all out to meet her targets.

It didn’t matter that she had to leave most of the Indian contingent and travel halfway around the world from Doha to Texas to play a tournament a few tiers below what she normally plays. It didn’t matter to her that she had to travel as many as 32 hours back home to Telangana, only to spend a few hours there before heading to Goa to play another tournament.

With her career taking off in the past couple of years, life has become a rollercoaster for her, and she’s enjoying the thrill, albeit suitcase in tow.

While she’s India’s No. 1 women’s player, having won domestic tournaments including a couple of national ranking tournaments, she seems to struggle on the international stage at World Table Tennis (WTT) tournaments. She’s managed to go past the qualifying stages, but it’s competing in the main draw against the best in the world where she struggles. And it’s a fair struggle, something even India’s top-ranked women’s paddler Manika Batra hasn’t really excelled at.

With the Paris Olympics coming up, there’s always pressure to get good results to better the ranking and make the cut. After all, the Summer Games seem to be the ultimate goal for most sportspersons, and it’s no different for Sreeja. After the high of winning the Commonwealth Games mixed doubles gold alongside Sharath Kamal, her confidence was taking a beating off late, and she knew she had to do something about it.

That was when someone suggested that she play a lower-tier WTT Feeder tournament, rather than a WTT Contender. The only problem was that the Feeder tournament was in the US and she was already in Qatar where the Contender was going to be held. Her hunger to do well and improve her rankings made her choose the former, even though it could have well been a waste of time.

Her risk paid off though, and how! Showing impeccable maturity, the 25-year-old secured her maiden international title, winning the WTT Feeder Corpus Christi in Texas, beating some top names on the way, including World No. 37 Lily Zhang who she stunned in straight games in the final. While Sreeja was able to dominate USA’s Lily in the title clash, it was her quarterfinal win over World No. 35 and top seed Amy Wang that erased all doubts in her mind.

“It’s such a great feeling to finally win an international tournament by beating top players. I would always feel disheartened and question myself whether I could play at this level and this just showed me I’m capable of competing at a high level,” she told The Indian Express on the sidelines of the WTT Star Contender Goa on Tuesday.

Olympics on her mind

The win also saw her jump 28 places to best-ever ranking of 66 in the world. “For an Olympic year, this ranking is so important,” she says.

“For India to qualify for the Olympics as a team, we need to get our individual ranking higher. The cut-off for qualification is mid-June so I’m ready to play any tournaments, not just contenders but feeders as well,” she said.

India can also qualify for the Olympics if they reach the quarterfinals of the World Team Championships next month and Sreeja says they have a good chance.

“Last year in the team championships we lost in the pre-quarterfinals to Chinese Taipei but this year everyone in the team has been performing well. Our rankings also are collectively much better so we’re confident of making it to Paris,” she says.

Battling injuries

While she’s ready to play in whatever tournaments to ensure qualification for the Olympics, Sreeja needs to be mindful of an injury for which adequate rest is a must.

“I have tennis elbow, which can be very problematic for a paddler. I’ve been playing back-to-back tournaments for the last couple of years and now I have to be extremely careful about it. That’s why I do strength training separately for an hour and a half every day,” she says.

Fresh challenge

Now that Sreeja is ranked 66th in the world, she will have to face a new challenge. To now improve her ranking or stay at that level, she will have to consistently beat the top-50 players. That means she will be facing Asian players — the Chinese and Japanese in particular — more often. And she knows she has to up her game by some distance.

“More than anything, I need to get mentally stronger against top Asian players. I have improved no doubt, but Asians are very quick and so I am working on improving the quickness of my feet. Since I play with a pimpled rubber, I need to learn how to improve my variations and flip my bat mid-rally, something which Manika has mastered,” Sreeja said.

After her win in Texas, she’s bound to grab a few eyeballs when she plays at the ongoing WTT Star Contender where she has made it to the main draw. She may be sleep-deprived and jet-lagged, but she’s fueled up and raring to go.