Game Set MATCH...

Ishita Malhotra is the latest teenage sports sensation to have stormed the nation. The nineteen-year-old tennis player has won a series of tough matches on the WTA tour and has become the second best ranked Indian player, after Sania Mirza. But the greatest accomplishment for her has been that she has been able to fulfill her father’s dreams of seeing her become a successful tennis player, something that her father himself couldn’t achieve in his lifetime. From outside- her world is perfect. Fame, money and public frenzy…what else could one ask for? But in her single-minded pursuit of sporting excellence, she has completely immersed her teenage years in rigorous training and long practice schedules. In the process she has missed out on all the simple joys in life that other youngsters relish like attending college and having friends. In fact this is a huge void in her life. She has no friends with whom she can share her feelings and in whom she can confide her fears and apprehensions. Her only source of comfort is her coach. But in an endeavor to fill this void in her life, she assumes a fake identity ‘Prerna’ on the Internet and strikes a friendship with a certain Mr. Arun Goyal.

Meanwhile Arun Goyal is completely unaware that he is, in the virtual world, in contact with one of the biggest sporting stars in the country. In fact if he would have known this, he would have been thrilled to bits, for he is a big fan of Ishita Malhotra in real world. He is a regular guy in his last year at college. He has a group of friends, a naughty brother, loving parents and a lot of studies to contend with. He is not at all ambitious and has complete faith in God. His believes that God about everyone and for him too God must have planned something good. With low expectations from himself and his life, he always remains happy and is never under stress. In fact his motto is that one should never dream as dreams cloud the heart with expectations, which invariably are not met, and life becomes doleful. As he and ‘Prerna’ chat more often through the Internet, he realizes that this is one girl with whom he shares a wonderful connect and asks her if they could meet. Ishita too is drawn to his simplicity and nice manner. She too yearns to meet him.

Soon they meet and he realizes ‘Prerna’s real identity. He is astonished and absolutely thrilled. There is no limit to his disbelief and happiness. Gradually they meet more often. He tricks his friends into traveling to Bangalore where Ishita is playing a tournament and watches her play there. He realizes how much efforts and hard work it takes to be a teenage superstar. He learns that Ishita’s parents had died when she was a kid and that she had sacrificed her school, her education, her friends i.e. all the fun of youth, in pursuit of fulfilling her father’s dream of seeing her become a great tennis player. In Arun she finds a true friend who makes her laugh, makes her happy and makes her realize that there is life beyond her passion i.e. tennis. She finally gets a chance to behave her age away from the grind and glam of tennis.

Just as things are going on great, disaster happens. Ishita and Arun meet with an accident that gives her a shoulder injury that keeps her away from the game for a few months. As it was Arun who was driving the bike when the accident took place, he feels responsible for Ishita’s pain. Thus he, along with his friends, tries to make it up by giving her happiness in a way in which only they could. They even play tennis together, Arun being hopeless at it and with Ishita’s right hand injured, they are evenly matched but still Arun loses. This makes him laugh but makes Ishita cry. She realizes her love for the game and how much she misses it. She starts putting in a lot of effort to get fit in time for the Wimbledon that looms large in the distance.

Meanwhile Arun makes a shocking discovery that Ishita’s mother who she thought dead was actually alive. It is he who helps the mother and daughter meet after so many years and makes them forget all the things of the past. Arun thus gives Ishita the one thing she craved for most in the world…her mother.

Soon it’s time for Wimbledon and Ishita, encouraged by the love she is receiving from all quarters, gets fit just in time for it. She has no hopes from the tournament itself as her shoulder still pained a bit when she struck the ball but she doesn’t care. She is happy just to get back into action. She is drawn to play against Shauna Aniston, the world number one in the first round match. No one expects her to win but miraculously, aided by the crowd support (including Arun, her mother and her step-sister) she manages to pull off an unexpected victory in an extremely hard fought match. And once more that scene is repeated at Wimbledon when a player rushes into the crowd without the thought of anything else but the man standing in the stands cheering for her (Maria Sharapova had rushed into the crowd after beating Serena Williams in the final to meet her ecstatic father) but the difference this time being that the player has won just a first round match and the man is not the player’s father. Ishita and Arun hug as they would never again with the whole world watching and cheering them on. God gives Arun something that he could not even have dreamnt of…


P.S.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y4w_lpSSjWw
This is the link of the video of Maria Sharapova’s winning moments that inspired me to write this story, the other inspiration being my inordinate love and affection for Miss. Sania Mirza.