Mumbai, Mar 17 (PTI) Squash ace Ramit Tandon has his sights set on the “big goal” of peaking in time for the Asian Games in September this year, but for now, the former India No. 1 says he will relish the opportunity to compete in a home tournament at the Indian Open.
Tandon, along with rising women’s star Anahat Singh, will feature in the JSW Indian Open starting here on Wednesday, a tournament he believes offers a rare advantage to Indian players by sparing them the need to travel overseas.
“It’s amazing, especially in times like these when travel is highly affected. It doesn’t get any easier when you can just take a domestic flight and turn up for a tournament in your backyard,” Tandon told PTI in an interview, sharing his thoughts on competing at the Indian Open at the Cricket Club of India.
“Having said that, playing at home is always special. You play in front of the people you love and people who have supported your sporting journey. As an Indian squash player, I don’t get to do it as frequently as my peers do in the US or the UK so I always look forward to coming back to India, especially the CCI has been very special to me,” he said.
Tandon said travelling around the world for participating in tournaments takes a toll, which isn’t spoken about much.
“The travel, which people haven’t spoken about much, it does take a toll on the body,” he said.
“You’re taking a 12-hour (or a) 14-hour flight to the US, UK for every event, versus the players who are in the US or the UK tend to have it easy, right? “So as an Indian, if you’re going to travel like 12 times a year, you’re also dealing with jet lag those many times, you’re dealing with those long flights. Having the ease of competing at home where you actually don’t have to travel and you have everything where you are born and brought up, is definitely an advantage,” he said.
Tandon said given the advantages of playing at home, it is imperative to make the most of the opportunity.
“Playing at home does come with expectation and pressure. It means more to you as an athlete, it means more to the people watching you because they’re out there to support you,” he said.
“It’s also a high-stakes event — the Asian Games — so you don’t get any better preparation than when you’re competing at home.” The 33-year-old Tandon said LA28 Games, where squash will make its debut in the Olympics, is still far away but everything he does from here on will be focussed on securing qualification.
“The way the criteria is laid out, it does not rule anyone out. There’s no guarantee. It does not rule anyone in either because you’re competing against the world but you’re also competing against your own country,” Tandon said.
“The only stable part of the criteria is obviously the qualification events, which is the Continental games and then there’ll be some world qualifier events because if you win those, you’re directly in, irrespective of where your ranking fluctuates.” “Someone could have a bad year, two years, (but) in the last six months, if he strikes gold (in the) lead up to the Olympics, he possibly could be (in).” He continued, “In terms of my preparation, everything I do today is based around making it to the Olympics and to make it to the Olympics, obviously the Asian Games is a big factor. So for this year, that is the big goal to be peaking in September for the Asian Games.” PTI DDV AM DDV AM AM
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