Rushil Khosla lifts maiden singles trophy at ITF J4 in Kenya

By Saurabh Singh | AITA

India’s Rushil Khosla won his maiden ITF singles trophy after scripting a wonderful come-from-behind victory over Portuguese junior Tiago Boschmans 3-6, 6-4, 6-4 at the J4 event held from 1^st to 6^th November at Nairobi, Kenya.

15 year old Khosla, en route to his title triumph, bettered all of his opponents in straight-set wins in the preceding rounds.

In his first round, Khosla was given a bye and in the second round he sent Burundi player Aboubakar Ndayishimiye packing 6-1, 6-1.

Up next, he dashed the hopes of third-seeded Brit Freddie Ridout 6-4, 6-4.

Japan’s 11^th seed Reiya Hattori and South African Leo Matthysen, who was seeded seventh, were bundled out by Khosla 6-3, 6-4 in quarters and 6-3, 6-3 in semis, respectively.

The resident of Greater Noida in Uttar Pradesh, Khosla’s previous best result on the ITF Junior circuit came at a home event in J5 Dehradun where he lost to USA’s Nikhil Niranjan in the semis earlier this year in March.

Khosla, who was an AITA-SAI’s High Performance Camp trainee earlier this year, is currently ranked second among junior boys in the Under 16 AITA rankings list and 11^th in the Under 18 Boys’ category.

Khosla has 75% win rate (21-7 win-loss) on the ITF World Tennis Tour Juniors.