Racquet Story

Kushal Mulay's father had to buy a new racquet during his u-16 1st round tie against Jayesh Pingliya after he broke it during practice, but used a borrowed one to scrape through

Suhrid Barua, Pune Mirror, January 27, 2009

Setbacks, small or big can pan out to be the clinching factor indeciding the result of a match. But, if a player manages to tide overthat and emerge as the win-ner, you got to give full credit to him.Kushal Mulay deserves all that. The thirteen-year-old broke his racquet while warming up for hisunder-16 first round tie against Jayesh Pingliya. His father, RajuMulay, who is a Residency Club coach, scampered out of the venue tobuy a new one for his son even as Kushal had to borrow a racquet fromone of the participating players. "I broke my racquet while serving during the customary warm-up session before the match against Jayesh. The racquet that I borrowed from one of the participants wasn't allowing me to play my natural game," moaned Kushal, who on Monday also made it to the second round of the under-14 category.
In fact, Kushal struggled to hold his serve four times before carving out a hard-fought 8-7 (7-5) romp to progress to the pre-quarterfinals of the under-16 category. "I was finding it difficult to hold my service with the borrowed racquet. It was even stevens at 5-4 before my dad got a new Head racquet for which he had to shell out Rs 8,200 as the only other racquet I had was with my elder sister Daksha, a former national-level junior player, who is currently using it while compet-ing in the ongoing Inter-University tourney in Gwalior. Luckilyfor me, I got the racquet in time as my opponent was threatening toseize the initiative," he breathed a sigh of relief.
Admitting that he didn't play as he would have liked, Kushal said hisopponent was unnecessarily getting rattled. "I was taking my own timein between points which was needling Jayesh. I think he got frustrated with that and start complaining to the umpire which of course had noeffect on me," he speaks his mind.
The ninth standard Singhad City School student gives us a shocker whenhe reveals his desire to shun academics and opt for tennis. "I am inninth standard but I don't think I will be taking the ninth standardexams as I will be mostly likely opt for a distance learning course sothat I get enough time to pursue tennis with utmost dedication."His father, Raju Mulay has ensured that his feet is kept firmlyplanted on the ground. "Kushal is a big Roger Federer fan. But I keeptelling him that every parents can't make his son become Federer. He has a long, long way to go in terms of improvement," his father presses the realistic button.