Billie Jean King Cup 2025: Vaidehi gives India headstart against Chinese Taipei

Pune: On the few occasions Vaidehi Chaudhari gets to travel home every year, she is given strict instructions: she cannot be seen wearing her tennis clothes outside the house. The irony is that almost everyone in her hometown of Mehsana – around 75 km north of Ahmedabad – has been tuning in to watch her compete for India at the Billie Jean King Cup in Pune.

On Friday, Chaudhari was given the task of opening the tie for the hosts as they took on Chinese Taipei in the Asia/Oceania Group 1 encounter. She had to grind it out, but after two hours and nine minutes, she ensured the opening point for India with a 6-2, 5-7, 6-4 win over Fang An Lin.

The win came a day after she put India in the lead in the tie against Hong Kong – her first singles win in a tournament dubbed the World Cup of tennis.

Chaudhari, the India No.4 who is ranked 364 in the world, was ready to play just in time. In the first two days of the tournament, Shrivalli and Sahaja Yamalapalli were tasked with playing the singles matches, but an injury to the latter on Wednesday required the team to bring in a change.

“In those first two days I was suffering from a stomach bug and just managed to recover in time,” Chaudhari said after her match on Friday. “But these matches were important for me and the wins have given me confidence going ahead.”

The victories have also given her the belief that the changes and work she has been putting in her game are reaping dividends. An aggressive baseliner, Chaudhari has some handy weapons off both wings. Of late though, she has been sharpening them further.

“I’ve been working on hitting the backhands flatter and adding more topspin on the forehand side,” she explained. “I’ve also been working a lot on my fitness and movement. That has actually helped me get better in the past few years.”

The 25-year-old, who lives and trains in Ahmedabad, is a two-time national champion. Her entry in tennis though was quite late. While most players tend to take their first steps in the sport when they are six or under, Chaudhari was 11.

“My uncle (a Deputy Superintendent of Police) wanted me to take up an individual sport, so he got me into tennis,” she said. “He was my first coach before I moved to an academy a year later.”

Her late entry also meant she had some catching up to do. She explained that she did not achieve much in the U-12 and U-14 levels, but started to pick up and win national tournaments in the U-16 and U-18 divisions. Part of the reason was her uncle’s strict focus on her physical training.

“He’s a bit old school and used to use a lot of police training drills,” she said. “There was a lot of bodyweight training – pullups and pushups. And a lot of running.”

Before each training session, she was required to run two kilometres. Once training ended, she ran another three.

Tennis had consumed Chaudhari’s world, but at home she had to adhere to societal norms. She recalled hearing stories of neighbouring housing societies issuing complaints if they saw girls wearing shorts.

“Because of that, I used to make sure I wore track pants wherever I went,” she said. “I did not want any needless distractions.”

Even now at home in Mehsana, she said, Chaudhari cannot wear her tennis attire outside of the practice courts.

“I am the first and only woman athlete from the city, and people follow my performances and wish me for my achievements, but they still don’t encourage girls to play sport,” she added. “That’s just how it is.”

The only connection she has been focusing on this week is with her teammates in Pune. The team captain Vishal Uppal calls her the team’s ‘sherni’ (lioness). Off court, she’s doing her best to maintain a single-minded approach to her game. It was reflected in the way she closed out her match on Friday. With an ace down the T.