CHENNAI: When Alejandro Falla and Alejandro Gonalez pulled out of the doubles first-round tie due to a shoulder injury to Gonalez, the Sood brothers Chandril and Lakshit got the lifetimes opportunity to play against Mahesh Bhupathi and Saketh Myneni at the centre court of the SDAT stadium.
The crowd did not anticipate them to replace the seasoned pros and found the Sood brothers curious.
The identical twins gave a good account of themselves at the hallowed surface of Indian tennis.
One got to see the twin-pair of Baba Aparajith and Indrajith play regularly for Tamil Nadu in the Ranji Trophy. But twins taking up tennis in India was a rarity.
The Bryan brothers Bob and Mike have played at the Chennai Open in the past and enthralled the crowds with their class.
“It was a wonderful experience playing at the Chennai Open. We’ve never played in such a big event. Got to watch top level players in action. And obviously we played the best doubles player Mahesh Bhupathi. To win a set against him was really a big achievement for us. Nothing could get better than that,” said Chandril.
For both, tennis is a way of life having held the racquet first at the age of five. “We started playing at of five. Our inspiration was our father Sandeep Sood (advocate), and our mother Rajshree Sood supported us a lot,” he recollected.
Tennis is a passion for the duo and they have been religiously going through the grind of ITF and Challengers in pursuit of their dream of becoming a quality doubles pair. “We both love tennis and that’s why we took it up. We have been training under our coach Ratan Sharma of Billabong School, Noida for the past 10 years. We live in Kaushambi, Ghaziabad,” the Punjabi added.
“We grew up learning the game watching Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi in action. So the Chennai Open was a platform where we could meet our role models face- to-face. This will inspire us to play more seriously and set new benchmarks,” said the 23-year-old.
“The Chennai Open doubles main draw which we played on Wednesday is the best so far. We have reached the semifinals stage of several ITF men’s futures tourney at Gwalior, Kuwait, Iran and Raipur,” said Chandril.
Both the brothers are fitness freaks and have trained abroad. “We had exposure to quality training at Sydney in 2005 and from then on we are conscious of our fitness,” he revealed.
The duo has not neglected education. Chandril has done MBA from AMU, Aligarh, while Lakshit is doing his MBA in AMU. The pair have tall ambitions and wish to make a mark, like their idols. “We want to gel like Leander-Mahesh and the Bryan brothers, and make a name for ourselves,” said Chandril.
The pair will be seen in action in the coming $100,000 Challenger at Delhi and $ 50,000 Challenger at Kolkata. They will also participate in the ITF men’s futures in India.