Sanket Tomar (15) captained the Delhi state five-member tennis team to victory at the 60th National School Lawn Tennis Under-17 Boys Championship 2014-15, held in Gulbarga (Karnataka) between January 7-11. Also a member of the winning Delhi squad which bagged the Under-14 nationals in 2013-14, this class IX student of Venkateshwar International School (VIS), Dwarka is included in the five-member team selected from a batch of 50 probables to represent India at the World Schools Championship Tennis 2015 ” organised by the International School Sport Federation ” scheduled in Doha (Qatar) from March 8. Thus far in the seven years since he started swinging a tennis racquet, this budding star has bagged over 42 trophies and medals.

The younger child of Brijpal Tomar, a courier firm manager, and Seema, a homemaker, Sanket owes his success to home and school support. Most of my time is spent in training, practice and playing tournaments. Therefore I’m grateful to my school teachers who take pains to mail me notes regularly. Their support has enabled me to write all my examinations with a fair degree of success, says Sanket.

Parental support has been instrumental in the development of his game. As a child I was hyperactive. So my father signed me up with VIS’ state-of-the-art tennis academy to work off my energy. It didn’t take me long to learn that I enjoyed playing and winning, he remembers.

Under the expert tutelage of coaches Rajendra Singh and Shekhar Menon of the Delhi-based Shanti Tennis Academy, Sanket entered and won his first inter-school tournament in 2011. Subsequently, he won the Junior ITF (International Tennis Federation) 2012 tournament and bagged a bronze at the CBSE 2013 nationals. For the past two years, Sanket is being mentored by professional coaches Rohit Choudhary, Sandeep Choudhary and Gaurav Sharma at Delhi’s top-ranked Yellow Balls Tennis Academy.

Inspired by world No.1 Serbian Novak Djokovic, Sanket says: After my class X boards, my focus will be to qualify for entry into the Indian Junior Davis Cup team and participate in junior grand slams.

Power to your elbow!

Autar Nehru (Delhi)