ZAGREB: Dad jobless, desi boy Vedant finishes second at Euro tennis meet

ZAGREB: Vedant Mohan was the only
player in the elite field of 14 boys, aged 10 and under, who had travelled to Croatia’s
resort town of Umag without a coach. But the young Indian tennis player made
light of his torn shoes to leave all but one of the competition behind,
finishing runner-up in the Champions Bowl World Finals.

Vedant qualified for the meet, Europe’s prestigious U-10 event, by winning
regional and national meets in Spain, where he trains. The 10-year-old lost to
Greece’s Rafael Pagonis, with whom he won the doubles title.

The fifth-grader trains under Daniel Kiernan at Soto Tennis Academy in Sotogrande
and is a regular on the Spanish circuit, where trainees of world’s best
academies compete. The family moved to Spain after his father, a pilot, lost
his job.

While rankings for that most formative of age groups, the under-10 section, is
strongly discouraged, where Vedant stands among his peers may be garnered from
his triumph in the national competition in Spain which helped him qualify for
Umag.

The other players in Umag also
came through a similar two-tier event staged in their respective countries.

Parents made bold choices

Vedant, a left-hander, is training abroad courtesy of some bold decisions made
by his parents.

The Mohans – Anisha and Dhruv –
from defence backgrounds, had reached out to renowned international coaches to
assess Vedant’s talent. Among them was the John McEnroe Tennis Academy in New
York, who also elicited an interest in training the boy.

They decided on the Soto Tennis
Academy 13 months ago, deciding to shift from Muscat, where they were based, on
the very day Dhruv, a commercial pilot, got the pink slip in the midst of a
raging pandemic.

Without a job, and savings that
would at best keep them going for a few months, the family of four arrived in
Spain, where stringent labour laws prohibit foreign nationals, unless
authorised, from even waiting tables.

They’ve managed to get by so far with borrowings
from parents and siblings, but it’ll only get tougher from here as they owe
Kiernan, a former pro, and the director of the Soto Tennis Academy, thousands
of Euros, and counting.