AIMING HIGH

For 17-year-old G. Rohan, it has been a remarkable journey in the world of squash. He has won junior titles in the U.S., European, Dutch, Malaysian, Hong Kong, and Indian Junior Opens, besides being runner-up in the Canadian and Singapore Opens and a third-place finisher in the Qatar Open.

Now ranked India’s No. 1 in the under-19 category, Rohan, inspired by his sister Amita Gondi, who was also a squash player, is eyeing greater glory as he pursues his passion for the sport and academics simultaneously with his father-cum-mentor Ramesh Gondi guiding him.

“My squash journey began right here in Hyderabad at the age of six, playing in the Secunderabad Junior

Open in 2012. While my sister was winning national titles, I was consistently losing in the early rounds,” the 12th grade student at Oakridge International School (Hyderabad), Rohan, says.

"But I would stay till the end of every tournament, play in the morning before the matches began, analyse the games in the afternoon, bounce ideas with my dad and sister, and then play again in the evening after the matches were over. That was my way of accelerating my growth as a player, and that effort paid off four years later when I won my first under-11 title in Chennai,” he says.

“In 2017, at age 10, I won the Asian junior circuit trifecta: — Malaysian Junior Open, the Hong Kong Junior Open, and the Indian Junior Open. That was my first time playing tournaments outside India, and I am very grateful to have gotten that confidence boost so early on in my squash career, as that crystallised a belief — I can dream big, work hard, and win big.

“2024 is going to be a big year for me. On the squash front, I am hoping to win big in my first world junior championships, which will be held in Houston in July. On the academic front, I will be attending Yale University next fall, where I intend to major in biomedical engineering and focus on learning more about stem cell research and wearables to work towards the goal of bulletproofing the human body,” he says.