The youngster was given the state award at the Republic Day function held by the Punjab government this year but there has been no assistance from the state government except for the Rs 2 lakh given by Punjab Minister Bikram Majithia in 2013.
IT’S A score which 19-year-old Patiala tennis player Parul Gupta kept telling her father during the flight from Slovenia to India. “We won 10-6 in the tie-break,” Parul, a hearing impaired tennis player, would tell her father Avinash Gupta.
Parul reached home after winning the doubles title with Hyderabad’s Jafreen Shaik with a 2-6, 6-4, 10-6 win over Jana Janosikova of Slovenia and Tutem Banguoglu of Turkey in the final of the Slovenia Deaf Open organised by the International Committee of Sports for the Deaf (ICSD) last week.
It was Parul’s second international title in a year as she had earlier won the title in Asia Pacific Deaf Games in October last year. The win also catapulted her to the top-ranked player in deaf category in India and 21st rank in the world rankings by ICSD.
“It was a nervous moment for me when I was serving for the match. And when we won the tie-break, I cried a lot and the winning feeling came when we stood on the podium and got our medals. Playing in Europe is always a challenge for us and this win has come without much match practice for both me and my playing partner Jafreen. We don’t’ get much tournaments to play and breaking into the top 25 players in the world means a lot for me,” Parul told Chandigarh Newsline on Tuesday.
Born hearing-impaired, the Patiala resident started playing tennis in 2001 at Yadavindra Public School, where her mother Madhu Gupta teaches and played initially in the general category where she claimed the silver medal in U-17 National School Games in 2011.
After winning a gold medal in nationals for deaf held in Aurangabad in 2013, Parul played in 2013 Deaf Olympics held in Bulgaria and finished with a silver medal in the doubles category in Youth Tennis Cup held in Germany in 2014. Last year, too, saw her partnering with Shaik and the duo went on to win the bronze medal in the Asia Pacific Deaf Games held at Taoyuan, Taiwan.
“She would go to school with me and saw some kids playing tennis. She wanted to play tennis and she started under coach Sanjeev Kumar. Later, she also spent some time with my brother in Chandigarh and trained under coach Gurinder Singh Sahota. She still cherishes her first medal which came in general category in 2011. The number one ranking in India will motivate her a lot and she is looking forward to playing in next year’s Deaf Olympics to be held in Turkey in July. There are not too many tournaments at the national level and she and Shaik practise very less. In 2013, Sania Mirza offered Parul to train at her academy along with Shaik but we cannot shift there,” said Parul’s mother Madhu Gupta.
The youngster was given the state award at the Republic Day function held by the Punjab government this year but there has been no assistance from the state government except for the Rs 2 lakh given by Punjab Minister Bikram Majithia in 2013. The youngster has been supported by Punjab National Bank since last year.
“We showed her Deepa Malik’s silver medal winning effort in Rio Paralympics today. Last year when she played in World Deaf Championships in Nottingham, she saw some wheelchair players playing tennis and she spent some time with them as well. Deepa mam’s feat has also inspired her a lot. We also hope that Punjab government will recognise her efforts and offer some assistance to her so that she can play more tournaments abroad,” said Parul’s father Avinash Gupta, who is a biochemist in Punjab State Power Corporation Limited in Patiala.
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