Indian tennis stars Sahaja Yamalapalli and Shrivalli Bhamidipaty suffered a loss in the second round of the pre-quarterfinals match of the 2025 WTA Chennai Open on Thursday, October 30, 2025. Sahaja lost the match in straight sets of 2-6, 2-6 against world no.78 Donna Vekic of Croatia. Shrivalli, on the other hand, was knocked down in a narrow defeat by sets of 5-7, 6-7 over the seventh-seeded Kimberly Birell of Australia.
In the opening set, Shrivalli broke down at 1-5, but made an impressive comeback and levelled the score at 5-5. But in the 11th game, Birell finished the opening set with 7-5. However, in the second set, both players got four breaks each, which then resulted in a tie score of 6-6. Leading the match in the tiebreaker, Shrivalli had to settle for defeat against the Australian player by a score of 2-6.
Meanwhile, Sahaja also lost her doubles match in the tournament. Partnered with Germany’s Caroline Werner, the pair lost their match by three sets of 6-3, 3-6, 7-10.
With both the losses coming from the top-two-ranked female tennis stars, India’s campaign in the singles category ended at the 2025 WTA Chennai Open. This was India’s first participation in a WTA event in over three years.
A look into Sahaja Yamalapalli’s career
Hailing from Hyderabad, Sahaja started playing at the age of 10. She was a student-athlete during her college years at Sam Houston State University. Playing there, she earned her first Player of the Year award in 2019.
Sahaja turned professional in 2021. Since then, she has gone to win five International Tennis Federation (ITF) titles, four in singles and one in doubles. Through the victories, she continues her growth towards prominence across ITF and WTA events and defeating top-200 players like Kayla Day and Ekaterina Makarova. She is one of the rising Indian tennis stars ranked among the top 1000 in the world in 2024.
A look into Shrivalli Bhamidipaty’s career
With success across both singles and doubles events, she was part of the Billie Jean King Cup and went on to win the 2025 Billie Jean King Cup Heart Award from the Asia-Oceania zone. As for her career achievements, she won a national title in 2023, several ITF tournament wins. She made her debut for the senior national team in 2025 and went on to win all five of her singles matches. She is a WTA-ranked player with a career-high singles ranking of no. 300 last year.
