Jennifer Luikham
| Photo Credit: Kamesh Srinivasan
Jennifer Luikham is brilliant to watch on a tennis court as plays the power-game in classical style.
The 23-year-old from the Tanghkhul Naga tribe in Manipur, picked early by Mahesh Bhupathi in 2008, and guided by coach Aditya Sachdeva over the years, is ready to make her presence felt, as she hinted by winning the $25,000 UTR Pro women’s tournament on Sunday.
“Some players take the escalator and some the stairs. Jennifer is now on the right track hopefully”, said Sachdeva, who trains her at the RoundGlass Academy in Chandigarh.
After being prompted by Mahesh, Sachdeva has been coaching Jennifer from 2012.
“Not often do you get an athlete who ticks a lot of boxes for a coach. She is gifted and has started to close in on others. Mentally she is maturing both on and off the court but needs to work a lot still”, he said.
With the support of her parents, Jennifer has been training and competing in Europe, and more recently in Tunisia for 17 weeks. She made a final, and a few semifinals and quarterfinals of $15,000 events.
It was no wonder that Jennifer was thrilled to win a title in singles in Delhi. “I had never won anything in Delhi. Good to be winning this at home”, said Jennifer who pocketed $3,600 for her show in the UTR Pro.
“I need to do more to get some support. The results could have been better in Tunisia. But it is not easy to be at your best without coaching support in tournaments”, said Jennifer.
While she wants to train and compete in Italy, Jennifer knows that she has to step up her performance in the international tournaments at home.
“Jennifer has to build herself not only as a player but as a student of the game. The goal for her is to break into the top 300 next year. The RoundGlass Academy has given us a platform to invite athletes like Jennifer to train free of cost. That frees up her finances to help her travel more’’, reasoned the coach, who trains Karman Kaur Thandi and has been instrumental in guiding Yuki Bhambri into the top-100 of men’s tennis.
Even though she is focused on the process, more good results from Jennifer will make her tennis journey easy and more enjoyable.