Parbina RashidChandigarh, July 30
Looking at the shy, pleasantly rounded face, it is hard to imagine that this young woman once represented India in the junior wing Wimbledon Tennis Championship in 1976. But she does not like to brag about it, little wonder then that after living in SAS Nagar near here for almost half a decade, she has managed to escape the hawk-eyed mediapersons so far.
So when she was confronted by Chandigarh Tribune to share her experience of the biggest achievement of her life, she looked absolutely perplexed. “It seems like an altogether different life now, even though I remember every single moment of my joy and sorrow when I lost the game to my Japanese opponent Yoshiko in the first round itself, “ says Susan.
Susan Norman was Susan Sinclair Jones at the time when she represented India in Wimbledon Championship. A resident of Kolkata at that time, she was trained by national tennis coach Akhtar Ali at the South Club before she was selected to represent India. Susan is the second Indian woman to have represented India at the junior level, the first woman being Anne Lumsdin before her, also from Kolkata.
She had started the game quite late. “I was almost 11 years old when I started playing tennis at The Dalhousie Institute,” reminisces Susan. It was only after she won a local tournament, that she started taking the game seriously. “I won the Junior National Championship in Guwahati in 1975 and was No.1 player. I was selected to go to Wimbledon,” she says. By that time Susan was already under the wing of Akhtar Ali at The South Club.
“The experience to go alone and play the game on an international platform was thrilling yet scary as I had never travelled alone to a foreign country before,” she says. And representing India where women tennis was still in a rudimentary form had not been easy for the young girl. “I was used to playing on clay court while I had to play on a grass court over there, but the worst thing that shook me out of my wits was while every other national player came equipped with their coaches and family members for moral support, I was all alone, with no one to guide me,” she recalls.
Coming from a middle class background, tennis proved to be quite an expensive hobby for Susan at that stage. “To go upto the international level, one needs to practise at least eight hours a day and to book a court for that period of time was simply beyond our means, let aside the expensive rackets and balls,” she said. “Nobody had heard of sponsorship at that time, so had it not been for my family support I would not have ventured into the game at all,” says Susan. Though Susan does not belong to a sportspersons family, her father Chelson Sinclair Jones was an ardent fan of tennis.
She might have had lost the game, but the experiences she gained was worth all the trouble she had gone through. “Having an opportunity to see and share meals with the big names like Chris Avert and others in flesh and blood were a dream come true. And the best part is that Yoshiko, my opponent, is still a good friend of mine.
Now that one of the city schools has shown interest in hiring her as tennis coach, she says, “After coming to SAS Nagar, I have practically left playing because public transport has not been good”. Susan at present is running a school with her husband at SAS Nagar.
