T A M S – Bangalore

It was a hard fought week for the guys and girls from Tams. A lot of them battled against their own friends coz the draw was clustered. But the week didn’t go without its share of ups and downs..

Nitin Varma Vegesna has been in the thick of things for some time now, we at Tams were desperate for him to turn things around. He had pumped in his fair share of extra hardwork for a fortnight and that eventually saw him land in the Semi-finals where he had to face Siddarth K.K, a good player whom Nitin had beaten couple years ago in an Under 10 Semifinals which was pretty close by all standards..

Nitin opened the semis with Siddarth quite well seizing the lead and winning the first set easily. Couple of crucial points in the early stages of the second set saw Siddarth capture the momentum and Nitin’s frustration jumped to another level coz his winners were coming thin and far. Nitin ended up losing the 2^nd set and the match headed into a decider final set. The 3^rd set was a seesaw with Nitin being down 3-4, again a crucial couple of errors from Nitin saw him down 3-5. The ninth game was nerve wrecking with both of trading blows, Siddarth eventually ended up with a match point, a long fought rally saw Nitin pull things under control to deuce and finally managing to clinch the next 2 points and the game to make it 4-5.

The Semifinals was getting close by every passing minute, the 10^th game was a relief for us as Nitin rallied brilliantly to get the momentum and the game to make it 5-5. Nitin breezed through the next 2 games with his new found energy to win the semifinals 6-2, 2-6,7-5 after being a match point down at 3-5.

The Finals with Akarsh Goankar

Akarsh is a promising lad from Bangalore and has been having great run in the recent past tournaments. Nitin had played him only once before and that was last month in a semifinal which he lost to him and eventually Akarsh went on to win the tournament. So we were well prepared for what was to come. We left no stone unturned..

In the first set Nitin played brilliantly constructing each and every point and finishing it off with a winner. Winners were steadily flowing from Nitin’s racquet which saw him clinch the 1^st set 6-4. The 2^nd set start had a flurry of unforced errors from Nitin coupled with moon balling from Akarsh and due to the lack of space between the baseline and the fence in that facility Nitin’s woes continued. Eventually after a few knee jerks Nitin lost the set 2-6..