Kolkata, Sep 17 (IANS) India’s Kyra Shroff, the youngest player in the main draw, wants to enjoy herself as the 14-year-old prepares for her opening tie in the Sunfeast Open Monday.
“I am not even thinking about winning. I just want to go there and enjoy,” Shroff said here after a long practice session with coach Prahlad Srinath.
Shroff is a juvenile diabetic but her resolve to excel in tennis has more than overcome the handicap. A finalist of the Asian junior tournament in Hyderabad in 2005, Shorff is a class X student of St Anne’s, Mumbai.
“Tennis has brought with it a lot of lifestyle changes. But I’m enjoying myself,” she said.
A fan of Roger Federer and Justine Henin, Kyra thinks very highly of Lleyton Hewitt. “This is because Hewitt is a fighter,” she concludes.
While doubts persist about crowd favourite Sania Mirza taking part in the WTA Tier III tournament, Shroff, holder of the national under-18 title she won last year, faces eighth seeded Yung-Yan Chan of Chinese Taipei in the first round.
She received one of the three wildcards for the main draw.
A trainee at the Mahesh Bhupathi Tennis Academy (MBTA) in Bangalore, Shroff got the wildcard as an acknowledgement of her prodigious talent that became evident at the nationals in Chennai last year, and again in international junior event she won in Bangladesh earlier this year.
Shroff has shifted base from Mumbai, where she started playing in Woodhouse Gymkhana at the age of seven, and is seriously thinking about pursuing a professional career in tennis.
“I may have to put behind my Board exams if my tennis itinerary clashes with it,” she said. “It is difficult to balance professional tennis with studies but that is one of the sacrifices I may have to make to do well in tennis.”
Shroff, who has been training in MBTA for four years, said she is already playing junior tournaments in Europe. The European circuit is part of her training schedule under the famed Italian coach Mose Navarra, who has an arrangement with MBTA.
“I feel I have learnt a lot and improved under Navarra’s coaching,” she said.