CHENNAI : Conducting an outdoor tournament during the rainy season is no painless task. This year’s Adidas-MCC national U-18 clay court tennis championship has had a rough time because of the weather. The ongoing tournament has seen more than four days of continuous downpour, forcing organisers to shift a few matches to other venues with hard courts. MCC, Gymkhana Club and YMCA are the three clay courts being used and because of weather, they had to use SDAT, Presidency Club and Cosmopolitan Club’s hard courts.
“We do witness rain for a day or two usually. But we make sure we compensate for it by starting early or extending the day by an hour on sunny days,” said Hiten Joshi, CEO of Tamil Nadu Tennis Association. “But this time, a lot of matches had to be shifted. Ideally, it’s a clay court tournament and we try our best to play here. But you can’t go against nature. Even if it has stopped raining, you need to wait until the court gets dry. The last time we witnessed something like this was in 2009 or 2010.”
Adding to it, transportation was also an issue with many venues being used. “There are 65-70 kids playing here. We had to provide minibuses to take them to other venues,” a referee, who didn’t want to be named, told Express.With the primary objective to play on clay court being lost, some players even said it took a while to get into the groove since they have come prepared to play on clay. “It’s different when you play on hard court and on clay,” said Prerna Vikram Vichare, one of the girls’ doubles winners. “I am based out of Mumbai and I practised on clay there. I came to Chennai three days prior to the tournament to get acclimatised to the conditions. But it was raining and we couldn’t practise too.”
With the ITF junior tennis tournament beginning in Chennai on Monday, organisers had no choice but to complete this event as planned on Saturday. With the first day’s play being washed out, doubles matches, which were supposed to begin on Monday, started on Wednesday. This had resulted in playing both doubles semifinal and final on the same day — Friday. Likewise, in the singles category, both semifinal and final will be played on Saturday. Though players did not complain about the new schedule, some of the parents felt it will make them tired if they are playing both singles and doubles.
srinidhi@newindianexpress.com
Select results: (finals): Doubles: boys: Hans Kabir/Grewal Depender (OD/HR) bt Jadhav Gunjan/Wadhav Dipin (MH/DL) 3-6, 7-6 (6), 10-8. Girls: Prerna Vichare/Sharanya Gaware (MH/MH) bt Vipasha Mehra/Sudipta Kumar (MH/MH) 6-1, 6-3.