In the 1990’s, Archana Venkataraman was a star on the rise. Since she was four, her tennis-obsessed family shuttled her from one tournament to another, one coaching clinic to the next. At seventeen, she was crowned the National Champion. Her place did not go unchallenged. At the finals of the National Games in 2002, Archana came up against a younger, hungrier, grittier rival — 16-year-old Sania Mirza. Playing the newcomer on her home turf in Hyderabad and booed by a hostile crowd of spectators, Archana went down in a firestorm of deuces. It takes a lot to succeed in a sport as expensive and competitive as tennis, more so for an Indian woman. In over a century, only four have made it to a Grand Slam event. Viewed in that sobering light, Archana Venkataraman’s story is one worth telling. Listen to it on Almost Perfect.