7 months ago
3
Minutes aft Ankur Bhattacharjee’s five-game nonaccomplishment to Lam Siu Hang of Hong Kong (China), which sealed India’s quarterfinal exit successful the Asian array tennis squad championships, young skipper Manav Thakkar turned to caput manager Massimo Costantini and said softly: “Sorry, coach.”
The Italian veteran, though, wasn’t having immoderate of it. “Don’t consciousness sorry,” helium told Manav and the remainder of the team. “You gave your best.”
No wonderment past that Costantini sounded thing but disappointed aft India’s men failed to unafraid a medal for the archetypal clip successful 4 editions.
“I americium not disappointed. It was a balanced match. We mislaid 2 games by a adjacent borderline of 3-2. At the extremity it’s 3-0, I understand. And nary excuses,” Costantini told The Hindu.
“I didn’t expect overmuch — the squad is young, with large work connected them. First time, boom, they’re successful a quarterfinal, defending a medal they didn’t adjacent triumph past year. Both Ankur and Manush (Shah) were playing for the archetypal time. They said, ‘sorry coach, we tried.’ And I’m blessed with the effort. They did their job, they tried. I knew the lucifer was tough. We lost, but I deliberation this was a bully commencement from the young crop.”
Costantini, who has overseen aggregate generations of Indian paddlers, admitted that his adjacent task volition beryllium to enactment connected the team’s intelligence fortitude arsenic it begins beingness aft the status of stalwart A. Sharath Kamal.
“Sharath is simply a leader. Now we person to enactment to marque idiosyncratic other a leader. Legacy is not an casual task,” helium said.
“It takes clip to make mentally. Tactically and technically, they are doing large things. But mentally, you person a cardinal thoughts during a lucifer — ‘what if I lose? what if my country, my team…?’ How you negociate these emotions — that’s my job, to marque them acceptable for the adjacent time,” Costantini emphasised.
