Velavan Senthilkumar took to squash eight years ago, courtesy a rainy season in Chennai.
Smitten by tennis and having just started playing it, the nine-year old just wouldn’t let his infatuation of a daily indulgence deterred, not even by rain. Naturally, his parents were worried. Solution? Squash. “It was my parents who suggested that I play squash since it is an indoor sport,” he recalls.
It took him on a heady, exciting journey that’s been eventful as much as enriching. His claim to fame arrived when he won a bronze in the boys’ singles category at the Commonwealth Youth Games held at Samoa in September, the first Indian to do so.
“It was tough. I lost to a Malaysian in the semifinals. Malaysian players are generally tough to beat. I’m happy that I was able to win a bronze though,” he says.
Rightly so, his equally favourite and memorable victory has come against Mohammad Syafiq of Malaysia at the Asian team championship in February. “Though the team lost, I won my match against him,” he says.
Samoa marked a first in his career in that it was his first time at an international multi-sport event. “We stayed at a school. Small yet interesting aspects of our stay there made the experience more memorable. For instance, we had no access to internet and it contributed to increased interaction amongst us. I ended up making more friends,” he recounts fondly.
Ever since he started playing, he has never trained anywhere else but the Indian Squash Academy in Chennai. “ISA is an integral part of my sporting career. I’ve been training there ever since I started out. It’s a great place for improvement. It feels good and satisfying whenever I train there,” he says.
He went on an exposure trip to Orlando and trained under former world champion David Palmer in June. “The infrastructure there was much better. He (Palmer) shared his experience and imparted his technical knowledge.”
He reckons that a large pool of players has helped countries like Egypt and Malaysia become a dominant world force in squash. “Squash is being played on a wider scale in those countries. That is why I think they are able to produce relatively more world-class players. As far as our country is concerned, the public interest is evidently on the rise.”
He’s someone who has seen the game evolve in the country, in parallel with his career. “Earlier, the British scoring system was in place. I thought that it rendered matches long as one earned a point only on their serve. Which is not the case in the American scoring system that has replaced it now,” he opines.
The road ahead?
“I would like to continue to represent India in the senior circuit and move ahead in rankings by virtue of some good performances,” he says.