Game, set, match

The year - circa 1995. Boris Becker's at the twilight of his career and Pete Sampras is at his peak and some kind of a morphed version of the two is in action at the cement courts at Lovedale, Ooty.

The Player had it all - the swaggering walk that characterised Becker, tongue hanging out and a small hunch at the shoulders confusing onlookers into thinking its Sampras and not Becker. Just like the (in)famous auto drivers in India who can confuse even best policeman by indicating left, signalling right and going straight, The Player was capable of throwing even the keenest observer off his real identity by serving like Becker and rushing in to volley immediately like Sampras. Only to pick up the ball that rarely crossed the net and rush back to the baseline to try serving again.

The technique was perfect while serving - the number of times the ball would be bounced in preparation for the serve, holding the ball to the racket and swinging it up and down a couple of times, tossing the ball in the air, arching the back and smacking the ball with an almighty smack - into the net. It boggled the mind. If Becker could serve up 20+ aces in a match and get in 80% of his first serves across with that technique, why not The Player? Much analysis was done and the problems identified included:

• Becker has a better racket
• Becker has a better tennis ball
• Becker has a better pair of sneakers
• Becker's t-shirt is better
• Becker plays on a better tennis court

The brain storming resulted in one solution - ditch Becker's style and take up Sampras's. After all Sampras was younger and in his prime. He served aces with the same frequency with which a waiter in Saravana Bhavan would serve coffee. The Player went back to the drawing boards and mastered Sampras's style. Same result.

Like a desperately sick man willing to try anything to get better, Goran Ivanisevic, Andre Agassi and even Steffi Graf and Monica Seles (including her characteristic grunt - just in case the sound waves somehow gave the ball additional momentum to cross the net) appeared on Lovedale's tennis courts to no avail.

In hindsight, The Player realises, that it was perhaps that he was too short at the time (4 ft. compared to an average 5'10" for the players above) or the absolute absence of power in those tiny arms that caused the ball to stay firmly on the wrong side of the net.

Or was it because Tennis was not exactly his cup of tea...the world will never know, because The Player has since retired from competitive sport (or anything remotely active) to an anonymous life as an auditor....