Md Shargar Salim in action during the Jamshedpur Open Tennis tournament. Picture by Bhola Prasad

Jamshedpur, March 9: The three-day Jamshedpur Open Tennis championship began in style at the JRD Tata Sports Complex here today.

The aim of the tournament is to nurture budding talent and also encourage children to take up tennis.

The qualifying and main draw matches which were played today witnessed a participation of around 51 tennis enthusiasts from different city based clubs. The championship has been divided in two categories — Under-14 and Under-18 age groups.

In the main draw matches in the Under-14 section, Md Shargar Salim of Tata Steel Tennis Training Centre (TSTTC) defeated Aakash of Telco Club by 7-0.

On the other hand Raghodeep Seth of United Club defeated Varun Nayar of Tube Makers club by 7-1.

On similar lines Sidhant Upadhyay of United Club emerged victorious in his match against Ratan Soren of Tube Makers Club when he vanquished the latter by 7-3 while Ranjan Thakur of TSTTC defeated Anand of Telco Club by 7-2.

In another main draw match in the Under-14 section for girls, Sushmita Paul of TSTTC defeated Kritika Shaw of Tube Makers Club 7-0 while Mukesh Sharma of Tube Makers club defeated Anand Singh of Telco club 7-1 to emerge the undisputed champion.

Altogether 20 tennis aspirants of the city are taking part in the Under-18 category while the rest are in the Under -14 category.

Beldih Club, United Club, Tube Makers Club, TSTTC and Telco Club are participating in the championships.

Organising officials maintained that these type of tournaments which used to take place earlier on a regular basis came to a grinding halt around four-five years ago due to some technical problem. “But through this tournament, we are trying to revive the trend once again, said one of the officials.

“It has been seen that although the children practise everyday in their club, there is no competition among them. When they play in this tournament, they would feel the need to win and thereby a habit of competition would be inculcated into them,” said an organising official.

The attitude of competition is dwindling among the budding players.

So this tournament also aims at cultivating the spirit of competition among the children so that they can take it up as a profession in the future. This championship would also help the children to showcase their sportsmanship spirit.