Little Djokovic from India

RISHABH SHARDA

Rishabh Sharda of India has an uncanny resemblance with tennis great Novak Djokovic in terms of looks including his hairstyle, and perhaps more importantly, he seems to share the World No. 2's 'never-say-die' attitude.

The 16-year-old, who beat Korea's Chan Woo Park to grab the boys' singles title of the Walton 30th Bangladesh ITF Junior Tennis Championship yesterday, stole the spotlight from the other contenders even on the tournament’s final day, which also saw the girls' singles, doubles and boys' doubles titles decided.

Rishabh admitted that people mention his resemblance with Djokovic a lot in his native land of Chandigarh and other parts of India. “Yes, I get that a lot,” he replied with a wry smile after beating Chan Woo Park 6-4, 7-6 in a nerve-wracking final at the Ramna National Tennis complex.

The similarities became more and more apparent as the Chandigarh boy, currently ranked sixth at the under-16 level in India, kept pushing the Korean who is almost double his size.

At first, the crowd's attention turned to Rishabh due to his physique and hairstyle but as the game flung from one end to the other, his unyielding spirit came to the fore.

The early exchanges proved to be a nervy affair with both players failing to hold their serves for the first four games. Then things started to fall in place as both players picked up their game, but Rishabh seemed to have shaken off the early anxiety more so than his opponent. An exquisite crosscourt got the sparse crowd, Rishabh's father among them, on their feet as the Indian closed the set 6-4.

The second set had a slightly different pattern, with the Indian breaking early only to allow Park back into the game, taking the set to a tie-break. However, some powerful serves and hard-earned rallies saw Rishabh ace the tie-break, culminating into a ferocious chest thump, once again reminding everyone of the 29-year-old Serb.

“It's not as if I follow him [Djokovic] consciously, but since he is my idol and I like his style of play, I guess things look similar,” Rishabh admitted gleefully.

While 12-time Grand Slam winner Djokovic comes from a sporting family, with tennis being very much in the blood, Rishabh's foray into tennis happened only by chance. In fact, the Indian preferred skating in school when one day a teacher suggested that he should try tennis as he had excellent footwork. That suggestion proved to be the best advice of his life as the youngster instantly made an impression in tennis before going on to impress his peers and Indian tennis authorities with numerous wins at home, following up with the singles and doubles titles of the Asian U-14 Tournament in Chandigarh three years ago.

Having come to Dhaka as the fourth seed, Rishabh didn't quite expect to win the title in his first overseas appearance, but he says that this victory might be the push he needed to make his dream come true. “I want to play like him [Djokovic] and improve day by day so that one day people will call me the next Djokovic.”