Sahaja Yamalapalli

Yamalapalli was born on 29 October 2000 in Hyderabad, India. Her mother is Supriya while her father Bhavaniprasad Yamalapalli works at an engineering college.^[5]

She started playing tennis at the age of ten. Yamalapalli graduated from Sam Houston State University in 2017 where she majored in Food Science and Nutrition. She has won the Player of the Year Award for collegiate tennis.^[6] She was the second tennis player in the university's history to be honored with the award, the first being Irina Sotnikova.

She was also the first women's tennis player who earned ITA national ranking 110 in the university's history while also becoming the first player to ever crack the ITA NCAA national ranking. Yamalapalli was Southland Conference women's tennis student-athlete of the year 2018, 2019 and 2021 for being top in studies and sports.^[7]

Yamalapalli made her debut on the ITF Women's World Tennis Tour in 2021. She won her first main-draw match in a WTA 125 event at the Mumbai Open in February 2024.^[8] She won the SoCal Pro Series and became the third Indian women's tennis player to win an ITF pro title.^[9] She also won the ECT ITF women’s singles title.^[10] She mainly plays tournaments on the ITF World Tour, where she has won four titles in the singles and one in the doubles.^{[citation needed]}

In October 2025, Yamalapalli made her WTA Tour main-draw debut as a wildcard entrant at the Chennai Open and defeated lucky loser Priska Nugroho,^[11] before losing to third seed Donna Vekić, in the second round.^[12]

• Tennis in India