Nepal, which now plays in the ITF Division 2, at one time had a bright player Ramesh Karki who topped the division to qualify for the Division 1 and still remains an inspiration for the new generation. [break]Sadly, he left for the United States a few years ago, according to Ghale, and the upcoming players are struggling to match the feat achieved by Karki almost a decade after his success.
Another Nepali player to shine in the international arena was *Sujaya Lama, who made it to the Wimbledon qualifiers in *1986 but couldn´t play due to illness.“The new generation can definitely progress,” says Ghale, who is training a team of six junior players for the ITF Asia 14&U Development Championships 2013 - Division 2 to be held in Vietnam from Jan 14-25.
Sakshyam Karki, Bibhuti Karki, Bijisha Shrestha and Mayanka Rana are among the four U-14 players out of the selected six who had featured in the last edition of the tournament and Ghale is optimistic that they would leave a mark this time around.
“They (selected players) were playing for experience last year. Now they will be playing for the title,” Ghale told Republica.
Samrakshyak Bhushan Bajracharya and Pranav Khanal are the new faces for the international tournament.
Ghale blames the recent slump in form of the Nepali players on the political upheaval of 1990 which disrupted regular tournaments. But since the of starting the JTI program in 2008, Nepali tennis is slowly moving back on track, according to Ghale. The 52-year-old coach says that continuous training is the most important pre-requisite for success.
He further says that the All Nepal Lawn Tennis Association (ANLTA) has given special attention to junior players in order to prepare a strong base for Nepali tennis.
“We are organizing about four to five junior tennis tournaments every year because the young players are our future. You cannot have a strong team if you just conduct tournaments at the senior level,” Ghale had told Republica in an interview last year.
However, the efforts of ANLTA and Ghale - who is the coordinator of JTI -- might not yield results as expected because the training has been limited to weekends because of the unfavorable academic curriculum of the players.
“The players train here only on the weekends because they have to attend school. We are trying to adjust in whatever way we can,” Ghale said.
But for the upcoming tournament, the players are undergoing three hours of training everyday since December 25.
Coach Ghale has high hopes from Sakshyam Karki and Bibhuti Karki, who have garnered ample experiences in the junior level and are in their final year in the U-14 event.
Nepali players are likely to face strong opposition from Indonesia, Singapore, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, according to Ghale. Other nations who are on par with Nepal´s level of competence are Pakistan, Myanmar, Cambodia, host Vietnam and Bhutan while Ghale has a relaxed approach toward players of Laos, Macau, Mongolia and the Maldives whom he considers as weaker opponents.
“Winning this tournament alone is not sufficient. We have to keep on winning if the country is to progress to the top level. However, individuals can reach the Division 1 if they excel in this level,” said Ghale.
Ghale says that Ivanhoe Lissanevitch could have made a great difference as he had defeated No 1 players from Singapore and Pakistan two years ago. He pulled out of the tournament last year due to injury and although he is still 14, he would have been allowed to play in the U-14 event only till the end of 2012.
Nevertheless, Ghale is upbeat that Nepali players will succeed in the international level sooner than later.
*Corrected
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