At the centre court of the SDAT-Nungambakkam Stadium here on Sunday, four Indian players — three girls and a boy — are hitting balls with tremendous power. Watching them and shouting words of encouragement is their coach Michael Baroch.
The 44-year-old Australian, a former coach of famous names such as Maria Sharapova, Ivan Lendl (sparring partner) and Mark Philippoussis, currently runs an academy in Melbourne and Singapore called MITS (Melbourne International Tennis School).
Flexible
He loves the attitude of Indians. “They (the players) are flexible and have tremendous skills but woefully lack in fitness,” he said.
The six-day Asian closed junior (under-18) tennis championships beginning on Monday simultaneously at the SDAT Stadium and the Presidency Club courts will provide ample opportunities to 80-odd Indians of the 128 in the fray to prove their mettle and grab the 180 ITF points and along with it the direct entry to the junior French Open and junior Wimbledon.
Great chance
India's Rakshay Thakkar, seeded third in boys' section, realises this as a great chance. “I haven't played at the Nungambakkam Stadium before. But I really want to do well as this is my last year in juniors,” he said.
For Kelvin Lam of Hong Kong, the conditions will play a crucial role. “It's pretty humid here. It will be tough,” said the sixth seed.
Hong Kong's Katherine Ip Cheng, seeded seven in girls' section, said the weather is similar to Hong Kong but “it's too hot here.”
The top seed Gao Xin of Japan will play Raswant Ravi of India in the boys' first round while Ayaka Okuno, the girls' No.1 seed, will be challenged by Binu Ravikumar.
Arjun Kadhe, No.2, will take on Goel Dhruv in the boys' first round. However, Rishika Sunkara, seeded No.2 in girls' will not be taking part as according to organisers “she didn't sign in”.
The results (final qualifying rounds, all Indians): Boys: Sarthak Sidharth bt Anuraag Lakkaraj 6-1, 6-4; Goel Dhruv bt Prashant Soodamani 6-3, 6-4; Sandeep Tirdala bt Varun Desai 6-2, 6-2; Richie Agarwal bt Harish Ramakrishnan 6-3, 6-4; Naveenkumar Arumugam bt S. Prithvi Sekhar 6-4, 6-1; Rajshekhar Raman bt Darshan Srinivasa 6-2, 6-1; Anthony Savio bt Harsha Manjunath 6-0, 6-2; Tushkar Mandlekar bt Aditya Deswal 6-4, 6-4.
Girls qualifiers: Mahitha Dadi Reddy, Sumeera Kamil, Umashankar Nupur, Ayushi Dhar, Anusha Dhar.
