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| Students pose with their trophies at the tennis tournament at New Patna Club on Sunday. Picture by Ashok Sinha |
Patna, Jan. 16: For Ritwil Brighuvanshi, it was a return from the cold.
A former participant of All India Tennis Tournament, Brighuvanshi trumped Ayush Bharatia as to lift the men’s singles trophy at the weeklong lawn tennis competition at New Patna Club today.
For the winner it was special moment: Brighuvanshi has returned to lawn tennis after a hiatus of four year.
It would have been a magical moment for him if he had conquered the doubles trophy as well. But Deepak Sinha and Amar Jaiswal vanquished Brighuvanshi and his partner Bharatia. “One needs a lot of stamina to play lawn tennis. It is a very stylish game,” said Brighuvanshi.
It was double heartbreak for young tennis player Sahil Bariar — he lost both the under-10 and the under-8 category to Yuvraj and Mehul Poddar respectively. Medhavi, on the other hand, took home both the under-12 and the under-14 competitions by beating Utkarsh and Amisha Gupta. Amisha’s mother Hema said: “Winning or losing does not matter. Participation is important. Unless a child participates in competitions like this, how will he or she know what is good for them?”
The competition, which started on January 10, saw a large turnout of spectators.
Parents and family members of the players took out time to cheer their children on different days.
Puneet Nandan, a Class XI student, said: “I have been playing lawn tennis for the past two years. It is a great experience.”
Nandan added that he had started to love the game by watching it on television.
“I am very passionate about the game. I have learnt the rules and am now trying to perfect my service,” said Nandan.
BJP MLA Shivesh Kumar distributed the prizes.
Deepak Kumar, a senior tennis player, said the large-scale participation in the competition was very encouraging.