Growing up in Lucknow, the 21-year-old began with cricket in 2012, drifted to tennis soon after, and only reluctantly accepted soft tennis when a family friend nudged him toward the sport. LUCKNOW: It’s true that Om Yadav never set out to play soft tennis.
Om has won five gold, one silver and five bronze medals at international events, including three gold and a bronze medal at the U-21 Asian Soft Tennis Championship. Because soft tennis felt like a detour from the more glamorous courts of conventional tennis, at first he resisted.
“I never wanted to play soft tennis or even tennis in the beginning as I was an allrounder in my age group cricket in 2012, but NIS coach Vijay Pathak guided me to tennis and in 2018 I switched to soft tennis when my father’s friend insisted,” said Om, who has so far won over a dozen medals at the national championships in age-group competitions. But repeated wins, including first at district meets, then state and national events, slowly transformed reluctance into passion. In fact, each trophy and each hard-fought match stitched a new thread to his identity.
“I am desperate to win the first Asian Games medal in soft tennis for India, I can do this,” said Om Yadav on Saturday after training at Fukushima where the Indian squad is undergoing its second international training programme. I am excited and feel the pressure as well,” said Om, who has a silver in men’s singles, finishing behind India’s top player Jay Meena, in the second India International Soft Tennis Championship last year. “Here at the training camp, we are working on our strategic approach, mainly focusing on sharpening technical skills and match awareness to handle the long rallies,” said Om.
Om Yadav is part of the six-member squad for the Games. He is one of the two players picked for the team event. The squad is: Yogesh Choudhary, Om Yadav (men’s team), Aryan Thakur, Jay Meena (men’s singles, team), Aniket Chirag Patel (men’s team, mixed) and Aadhya Tiwari (women’s singles, mixed). “Asian Games is a big stage where all the top guns of Asia, especially from Japan, China and Korea, will be there.
