Sreeja Akula

Sreeja hails from Hyderabad. Both her father Praveen Kumar, a manager in a private insurance company, and elder sister Ravali are table tennis players.^[5] Ravali played at the university level. Sreeja trained under coach Somnath Ghosh,^[6] at his academy at Kukatpally, Hyderabad. Before that she learnt the basics at St Paul’s Academy in Basheer Bagh when she was nine years and continued the game at YMCA in Narayanguda,^[5] She passed her intermediate (plus two) with 98.7 per cent and then graduated in commerce. Telangana State Table Tennis Association (TSTTA) Secretary Nagendra Reddy was one of her first coaches.^[5]

Akula was the gold medalist in Women's Doubles and Women's Team events in Table tennis at the 2019 South Asian Games.^[7]

Akula won the women's singles and doubles table tennis titles at the 83rd Senior National and Inter-State Table Tennis Championships held in April 2022.^[8] She was the runner-up in national Women's singles in the previous edition, losing to Manika Batra. She was also a part of the Indian team at the 2022 Commonwealth Games where she won gold medal in mixed doubles event with Sharath Kamal.^[5][9]

In January 2024, Sreeja won her maiden WTT singles career title at the WTT Feeder Corpus Christi in Texas.^[9] This was followed by her second singles career title at the WTT Feeder Beirut II in March 2024 where she beat Luxembourg’s Sarah De Nutte 3-1 (6-11, 12-10, 11-5, 11-9) in the final.^[10] At the WTT Contender Lagos in June 2024, Akula became the first Indian to win a title at the Contender level. She achieved this feat by beating China's Ding Yijie with a 4-1 score in the ultimate clash. At the same event, she also won the women's doubles title alongside Archana Kamath.^[11]

Akula received the Arjuna Award in 2022.^[5][12][13]