{"id":24191,"date":"2025-04-16T07:43:14","date_gmt":"2025-04-16T07:43:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/24191\/"},"modified":"2025-04-16T07:43:14","modified_gmt":"2025-04-16T07:43:14","slug":"what-has-maaya-revathi-learnt-at-nadals-spain-academy-eat-rice-adapt-to-very-slow-clay-court-and-technical-corrections-from-legend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/24191\/","title":{"rendered":"What has Maaya Revathi learnt at Nadal’s spain academy? Eat rice, adapt to very slow clay court, and technical corrections from legend"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was the year before 15-year-old tennis find Maaya Rajeshwaran Revathi was born, when Rafael Nadal lost the 2008 Chennai Open ATP final to Mikhail Youzhny. The circumstances of the margin on the hard courts aside, Nadal \u2013 a regular in the year-opening event knew a fair bit about the tennis potential of the southern Indian state, where the Coimbatore youngster comes from.<\/p>\n

When Maaya was invited to train at Nadal\u2019s academy in Mallorca this year, one of the earliest realisations she was hit with was what Spaniards have known over the years \u2013 that Indian clay surfaces were perhaps the fastest of the red soil ones.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

There\u2019s clay, and then there\u2019s \u2018the clay\u2019 Maaya is slugging out on the Balearic islands.<\/p>\n

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Maaya, invited as reserves to be with the Billie Jean King Cup team that made the playoffs after the Asia-Oceania Group games in Pune<\/a>, would talk about the gravely knowledge about playing on clay she\u2019s internalising at the Spanish base.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat clay in Europe is physically demanding. Indian clay is one of the fastest clays in the world. But in Europe you have to learn to grind for longer, so what\u2019s done in 1.5 hours here, you have to hit for 2.5 hours. It\u2019s all about playing rallies tactically,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Maaya has been part of Indian junior teams, but is excited to watch professionalism of her older seniors at the BJK Cup, and though her goals are still winning Junior Grand Slams, there was always the wish to set base in Europe after she decided to go pro in tennis. \u201cThough we were looking for a base in Europe, we didn\u2019t send a request here. In fact we got an invite after being scouted and after 2-3weeks I was happy to train there,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Maaya liked the well formatted training routines. \u201cI was happy when we were out there on court first day at 6.30 a.m and I just felt ready to start. It\u2019s a massive facility, one of biggest there, and there\u2019s so many different athletes in tennis and paddle. The environment is fantastic,\u201d she described.<\/p>\n

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\"Maaya Maaya Rajeshwaran and Srivalli in a practice session during Billie Jean King Cup. (MSLTA)<\/p>\n

Nadal would come for a day, and interact with the newcomer from India. \u201cHe came one morning and watched me play. He gave coaches certain feedback on technical corrections. He also congratulated me on my Mumbai<\/a> result (she made WTA 125 semis), and asked how school was,\u201d she recalls.<\/p>\n

On the whole, it helps to have a professional setup all in one place, and one of her earliest appointments with the nutritionist yielded a surprise. \u201cI had landed there pretty fit so that was good, but the nutrition lady surprised me by advising that I stick to eating rice, because it is better than pasta and will suit me better. She said keep eating what you always have,\u201d Maaya laughs, recalling a conversation that stumped her where she was told benefits of Indian food. Having rented out an apartment with her mother, who cooks (as does she), it\u2019s worked out well.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey said they would monitor me daily, but I didn\u2019t need to change much,\u201d she says, adding it\u2019s lots of rice and millets in her diet.<\/p>\n

Known as someone with a solid, aggressive baseline game, and an unflappable temperament, Maaya does get into phases where she fixates on perfection. \u201cAt my previous academy, I needed to get a particular thing in my serve right. I hadn\u2019t played for 2-3 days, but I kept serving for hours because I wanted to finish the session on a good note,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

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The demands on physicality on clay however mean such sessions for accuracy and grinding will only increase in intensity. \u201cIn juniors and in India, at most you have to labour over 3,4,5,6 shots at most in a rally. There you properly grind and need to be smart about movement,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Even the sliding and wheeling around court gets demanding daily. Once again, there\u2019s lateral strides, and then lateral striding on clay. \u201cThose are some hard lateral movements we need to train for,\u201d Maaya says, adding it needs proportional strength training.<\/p>\n

With her father unable to travel, she often misses him. \u201cI miss my grandmother\u2019s cooking too and Dad too. But I can\u2019t be with both parents.\u201d The Serena Williams fan insists everything feels like an opportunity at the moment, not a sacrifice. About her idol, she adds, \u201cShe dominated for 20 years. That\u2019s massive.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Maaya is loving the whole tennis drill in Spain, that\u2019s making her independent. \u201cIt\u2019s a very lively lifestyle in Spain. There\u2019s no ordering food there. You have to get out of the house for everything. I\u2019m loving that,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was the year before 15-year-old tennis find Maaya Rajeshwaran Revathi was born, when Rafael Nadal lost the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24192,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4105],"tags":[15026,15027,15028,15029,79,1068,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-24191","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tennis","8":"tag-india-tennis","9":"tag-india-tennis-news","10":"tag-indian-tennis","11":"tag-indian-tennis-players","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-tennis","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114346524860078734","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24191\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}