Bhubaneswar: Two young tennis players were felicitated by Odisha Tennis Association felicitated at a function of Kalinga Stadium here on Wednesday.
The players are Debasis Sahoo and Sohini Sanjay Mohanty.
Debasis, ranked No 1 in Odisha in U-16 & U-18, is the first player from the state to play the prestigious junior event of “Road to Wimbledon Master Qualifying Tournament” in the U-14 Boys category in 2019. Debasis is preparing for Junior Davis Cup and will make the state proud if he does so in 2022.
Sohini, No 1 in U-14 girls category in the state and No 7 in India, has started making her journey into big leagues like ITF. She is the youngest player from Odisha to have won more than 60 titles. She stood 3rd representing India in the U-11 Ten-Pro 2019 at Rafal Nadal Academy, Spain.
Sports & Youth Services Minister Tusharkanti Behera felicitated the two young talents in the presence of Sports secretary Vineel Krishna; , president, Odisha Tennis Association (OTA), Asit Tripathy; OTA Secretary Satyajit Mohanty and Joint Secretary OTA, Sanjeeb Panda.
On the occasion, the Minister also launched a mobile application of the Odisha Tennis Academy. The application will facilitate online registration of players for coaching, assignment of coaches, booking of the courts, issue of identity card etc. to the players.
Currently, five coaches are engaged in Kalinga Stadium and coaching more than 100 young players. The new office of OTA was also inaugurated on this occasion.
Among others, Brahmananda Mishra, Asit Pradhan, DK Tunga, Bibek Patnaik, Satyajit Mohanty (Rubuna), Chief Coach Vinod Seth and other officials of Odisha Tennis Association along with officials of Sports and Youth Services Department were present.
