‘What next for Dhakshineswar Suresh in terms of upskilling his game?’ This thought kept echoing in the mind as Harold Mayot served for the match in their quarter-final. Soon, Mayot wrapped up the proceedings with a clinical 7-6, 6-2 victory to move into the last-four of the Bengaluru Tennis Open. But even after the duo left the tennis court, those thoughts continued to gush forth.
In summary, here is a 25-year-old, who has the big weapons – powerful serve, decent ground-strokes and the feel for the net. However, to succeed in the harsh world of professional tennis, you need more than just burgeoning promise.
Right through the opening set, Suresh bombarded his opponent with serves down the T and also the wide serve. He also blended it with some fine volleys and a shot that can be best described as a forehand slice where he found the open court. Now, that is a stroke which is rarely seen in modern-day tennis. However, those eye-catching shots were juxtaposed by him perhaps trying to pull the trigger too early on his forehand wing. It was a day where he made enough unforced errors on the wing.
Suresh’s raw talent still helped him to take the first set to a tie-break. Just that his experienced opponent put on a masterclass of tennis smarts in the tie-break to seal it. The 175th ranked player from France has a rather different style compared to most others on the tennis circuit.
On the single-hand backhand wing, he has a slice and a block. Yet, he manages to chisel out paths. His traits to pick the serve early, employ the lob to good effect, alongside how he weaves a web around his opponent by unknowingly forcing him to play to his strengths, make him a canny opponent. At one point, Suresh ended up only using backhand slices, playing to his opponent’s strengths.
In the second set, Mayot continued to use the kick serve to good effect. He also broke Suresh twice to emerge triumphant. By then, Suresh seemed to be increasingly frustrated. After losing one of those points, he smashed the tennis ball so hard that it went almost over the top of the stands. A sign that Mayot had the clear upper hand.
That is in brief about the match. But the main question remains answered. What next for Suresh? Ideally, he needs the right kind of people around him, including the coach, trainer and Co. From the outside, tennis looks like a glamorous sport, but for those lower-ranked players, it is a hard grind. And that is where Suresh needs more financial backing to harness his potential.
For more details, follow REVSPORTZ.
