A different boomerang

A game that returns all that one throws at it is perhaps the ideal for Ravi Dixit, an 18-year-old Indian Squash Academy-based player from Dhampur, who has made a reputation of coming back from the brink in matches that matter.

Dedicated player

In the past three years or so that he has spent in Chennai, under the tutelage of National coach Cyrus Poncha, Ravi has been categorised as someone who regularly belies his fragile-looking frame to come up good, time after time, in unfavourable situations. In the Asian junior championships in Sri Lanka recently, he took this skill a step further, reviving himself from a two-game deficit against Pakistan's Waqas Mehboob to become the first Indian to win the boys' title.

“That was the first time I won from being matchball down. But there was no pressure on me…I was just playing the way I always play,” he says.

Earlier, in June, Ravi became the first Indian to win the Milo All Star Malaysian Junior Open in Kuala Lumpur. The final on that occasion, against home favourite Jo Wen Ng, required just four games for resolution. And the Bachelor of Arts student at Annamalai University is hopeful he will be able to whittle most of his matches down to straight-game formalities with time and practice.

Currently number 209 on the PSA rankings list, Ravi's engagement with the junior leg will end in January 2011 – when he turns 19 - after which the focus will shift to the senior circuit, one on which his predecessors Saurav Ghosal and Ritwik Bhattacharya have made a noticeable impression.

“There are a lot of Indian players to look up to. But my favourite is Malaysia's Ong Beng Hee, the World No. 19. My target for the next year is to enter the top 100. But before that I am leaving for the World Juniors in Ecuador. And of course, the Commonwealth Games are also on top of the agenda,” he says.

Another platform

The country's current obsession, the CWG-2010 in New Delhi, might provide Ravi and another upcoming player, Ramit Tandon, an opportunity to compete as a doubles team, despite the presence of other, senior, claimants.

“Ramit and I have beaten some senior teams during practice. Once we even got the better of Gaurav Nandrajog (rank 179) and Siddharth Suchde (rank 88), so the coaches are considering to allow us to compete as one of the Indian teams in the doubles event,” he concludes.