Divij Sharan is totally devoted to his tennis, travelling across the globe. Despite not having regular partners, he has managed to get good results in the professional circuit, in which he feels “doubles is crazy, especially on grass”.
Happy to have qualified for the ATP-500 event in Halle, Divij said that he would be partnering Marcelo Demoliner of Brazil till Wimbledon.
“Earlier, players used to make a team for the whole year. Now, in a few weeks or maybe two to three months, players in the top-30 to 40 rankings change partners if things do not work well,” said Divij from Halle.
Different world
“It is a different world. We are travelling all the time. Only when I come home briefly, once in a while, I get to know what is happening,” said the 32-year-old Divij, who made it to the Wimbledon quarterfinals last year.
He did start the season well by winning the Pune ATP event with Rohan Bopanna apart from the Davis Cup doubles rubber against Italy in Kolkata. Then, the two opted to part ways in pursuit of higher goals, after the Phoenix Challenger in the second week of March, and ended up facing each other in the first round of the ATP event in Munich.
Quick changes
“In the match tie-break, we were up 8-2 or so and then Bopanna and partner were leading 9-8.
“We managed to pull it off at 12-10. Doubles matches change very quickly,” recalled Divij, who went on to make the final in that event with Demoliner, in only their fourth tournament as a pair.
“In Stuttgart, we had 10 match points against Denys Molchanov and Artem Sitak. Eight of them were on their serve. Not that we played bad. We had two match points on our serve, and they played great points. I take it in my stride. But Demoliner, is quite serious about his tennis and feels the loss more,” said Divij.
With Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan, Purav Raja, Leander Paes, Sriram Balaji, Vishnu Vardhan being regular on the doubles circuit, there is a strong Indian presence from Challengers upwards.
Good sign
“It is good that we have so many of our players in the tournaments. We get along well. Singles is hard, but Sumit Nagal is getting good results now after being a bit down,” said Divij.
“Somdev (Devvarman) had the best fitness and did a great job at this level. Looking at Rafael Nadal, it is amazing how he has been able to cope with it despite all the injuries and still find a way to win the French Open,” said Divij.
With the World Cup cricket on, Divij said that he would like to catch up with the action once in England as it was difficult to watch cricket on television in some of the European countries.
