tennis in blood

It's all in his blood. His family has been playing the game since the last three generations and therefore tennis comes naturally to this down-to-earth man, who has been striking the right form off late. A spirited youngster, he has inherited the tennis genes from his father, Balram Singh, who was part of the Davis Cup team.

Now Ashutosh is energized for the Indian Tennis League which would most probably take place in December.

National hard court champion (singles) Ashutosh Singh won the ATP Challenger Tennis Doubles title partnering Harsh Mankad at the Delhi Lawn Tennis Grounds last year. Ecstatic about the win against the Indo-American pair of Mustafa Ghouse and Brendan Evans, Ashustosh termed it to be a combined effort.

"It feels very nice after winning the ATP doubles title. Harsh and I were in great form. We knew we would play well but since we were playing with each other for the first time, we were a bit apprehensive about it. But then it was good. We won against Evans-Ghouse. Evans is ranked high and winning against him was good. The conditions also helped. We beat some of the players who are ranked in the top 100 in doubles," said Ashutosh.

Only the third Indian pair to win the ATP challenger tennis doubles title, Mankad and Ashutosh also became the first Indian pair in almost two years to win a Challenger title after Rohan Bopanna and Prakash Amritraj achieved the feat in 2006.

The 25-year-old comes from a family that eats, breathes and talks tennis. Ashutosh finds it difficult to answer when he picked up the racquet for the first time. "I am the third generation from my tennis family. My grandfather, Jai Narayan Singh, was a tennis coach at Chelmsford Club. My father, Balram Singh was a Davis Cupper. Even my sister Shalini Thakur was a former national champion and now a coach at DLTA. Arun Kumar (my cousin brother) is my coach," he informs.

"Till school time I wasn’t a very good player, though, I had represented at the state-level. It was during my college days that I got serious about the game. I started concentrating on the game and started improving gradually. And today I am happy to have reached this level. But still there is a long way to go," added Ashutosh.

Explaining about the schedule, Ashutosh said that it would be doubles’ centric as it is the good performance in doubles that has helped him perform well in singles as well. "

Ashutosh, a winner of eight ITF Futures doubles titles, considers Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi as his ideals. "Leander and Mahesh are an inspiration for all tennis players. For someone like me who had been a ball boy for Mahesh and Leander in the Davis Cup, meeting and playing with them is a dream come true,” said Ashutosh, who was their practice partner during India’s Davis Cup tie against Japan.

“As far as Rohan Bopanna and Prakash Amritraj are concerned, they are ranked higher than me and we don't get to play the same tournaments. But they are nice friends," says Ashutosh.