Ajinkya Vyas, captain of the BITS Lawn Tennis team, definitely has his plate full.  Amidst practice, mentoring, and team meet-ups, he graciously spared some time to speak to the BOSM English Press.

Lawn Tennis, like most other games, has a myriad of formats. BOSM has five players per team, and there will be two BITSian teams participating this year. In singles matches, two opponents face off, one on either side of the court. In doubles matches, two players from each team go against each other.

At BOSM, each tennis match is comprised of three sets, which are in turn composed of a number of games. At the first concession, the points granted are fifteen, followed by an increase to thirty, and then to forty, followed by winning the game. When both players are simultaneously at forty, a deuce is attained; the first player to concede points twice in a row loses. The first player to win four games wins a set. In the event that both players are at three games each, one of the players must win two consecutive games to win. If they fail to do so, a tie breaker is held to resolve the set. Three sets are played in a match in a best-of-three sets format. The semi-finals and finals, however, are played according to International Tennis Federation rules. While there are no time or racquet smashing violations, players can be warned for unsportsmanlike conduct.

There are a total of thirteen players on the team–out of which three are currently injured–and the captain decides how he wants to sort the rest into two teams of five each – BITS A and BITS B. The team is not being formally mentored by a coach this time, as the usual coach for BITS is preoccupied with some other commitments.

Outside of BOSM, the team goes to outstation competitions in the even semesters. ‘In my first year we won gold at IIT Delhi and Silver at IIT Roorkee. Those tournaments also follow the same format as BOSM’, he says. Their major rival is the team from Venky’s, the same one they lost to last time around.

Ajinkya says that he picked up tennis as a passion sometime while he was in upper kindergarten or first grade. He has played in the nationals before, as a part of the Maharashtra team. Ajinkya feels that his experience as a captain is an added pressure. Previously, he used to play in a more carefree manner—winning or losing did not really matter. But the responsibility of the team now falls on him, and he has begun to focus on how others in the team play as well. ‘I now focus more on their games and hope that they improve to the point where I am not able to focus on my game as much as I should be able to. My main job as a captain is to keep the team together.’

Ajinkya feels that there is a certain lack in feedback on his own games. Earlier, he always had seniors telling him about his mistakes, but he has no one to do that for him now. Roger Federer is his favourite player, and he also likes Kim Clijsters’s attitude towards the game.

Ajinkya’s closing message is to the first year students—he emphasizes on the fact that freshers need to have a good balance between extra-curricular activities and academics and should not focus only on academics entirely