Aryan Goveas played the second round of an ATP Challenger event for the first time after a solid win over a higher-ranked opponent as a wildcard at the ongoing KPIT-MSLTA Challenger in Pune. The 21-year-old tennis player from Mumbai was up against Sumit Nagal, the India No 2 who has had a breakthrough run on the circuit in the last couple of months.
A wildcard world No 867 vs the world No 127 who won his second Challenger title a little over a month ago may seem like a no-contest to many. But Goveas, cheered on by a small group of supporters from the city he trains in, took the fight to the higher-ranked player in one of the most entertaining matches of the second round on Wednesday. The experienced Nagal prevailed 6-3, 7-6(5) in a high-energy contest, but not before Goveas gave a good account of himself for the future.
“I think he was a little nervous at the start which is normal. He played very well on the point he needed to. He served well, hit good forehands. Second set was a good quality from him. He has a long way to go but good overall,” Nagal said of his opponent.
In the first round, he had notched a 6-4, 7-6(4) win over 480th ranked German Tobias Simon to justify his wildcard, which has been given to him for the third straight year. This has been a strong season for the youngster, reaching the finals of the national tennis championship last month.
“I think the second of the year has been better for me I’ve had better performances. So yeah, I was feeling more confident than usual and I was I was ready to be out there,” Goveas told Scroll.in on the sidelines of the Pune Challenger.
The youngster, who trains at the Adar Poonawalla Tennis Academy with long-time coach Aditya Madkekar and Kaifi Afzal, said he has changed several things tactically this year in order to be able to transition from the Futures circuit.
A training stint at David Ferrer’s academy in Alicante, Spain in the summer also helped him fine-tune his style. He played a lot on clay there, which helped his game become balanced as well and it is showing.
“I think more it’s like just correcting things tactically. I have started playing more to my strength, I don’t do things that I am not not very good. I rather do things that I’m tactically strong at, I am going for my serve and being bit more aggressive, taking chances coming up the net. There are days when it doesn’t work, then it’s tough and I need to do other things. But obviously, when it works, I can control the things happening out there,” he explained
In the meantime, he has worked on his physical fitness as well... clocking more time at the gym to get stronger and more flexible; a transformation that is showing in his groundstrokes.
It hasn’t been an easy start of the season due to the transition tour which cut down the number of players ranked on the ATP Tour and gave points only for the $25K tournaments which made the competition much tougher at the level.
However, the International Tennis Federation retracted this move and awarded points to the $15K tournaments, which backfired on the Indian players who had risked early exits in the bigger tournaments for points.
It goes without saying that tennis is a lonely sport, more so at the Futures level when you are don’t always have a coach or family member with you. The 21-year-old started travelling alone when he was 14 and has become more or less self-sufficient. At the same time, support from the stands is crucial to his game. In Pune, his interaction with the crowd and the boost he got from them at big points was evident.
“It was not possible for my coaches to travel with me and it is not easy financially either. I had my dad to a few weeks but I did a lot of weeks alone. It was a bit tough within the start of the year to push myself. Hopefully next year I can have someone to travel with me because it really helps me,” he added.
This year, he has also had sponsorship from the Go Sports Foundation based in Bangalore which has helped him. Before that, he was self-sponsored with help from the Maharashtra State Lawn Tennis Association.
Up next for him are a couple more Futures tournament before he winds down is his season and prepares for 2020. He may return to Ferrer’s academy only for the fitness aspects and he wants to train on hard-courts. As of now, the focus is to transition to the Challenger circuit with the old rules back in place.
