Asian Games: ‘Team man’ Om Yadav eyes India’s first soft tennis medal

Om Yadav, a 21-year-old soft tennis player from Lucknow, aims to win India's first Asian Games medal, showcasing his journey from cricket to this sport.

LUCKNOW: It’s true that Om Yadav never set out to play soft tennis. Growing up in Lucknow, the 21-year-old began with cricket in 2012, drifted to tennis soon after, and only reluctantly accepted soft tennis when a family friend nudged him toward the sport.

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At first he resisted because soft tennis felt like a detour from the more glamorous courts of conventional tennis. But repeated wins, including first at district meets, then state and national events, slowly transformed reluctance into passion. In fact, each trophy and each hard-fought match stitched a new thread to his identity.

Today he trains with a single, clear aim: to bring India its first Asian Games soft tennis medal in Japan. India’s history in Asian Games soft tennis is brief and modest but marked by gradual progress. Soft tennis made its debut at the Asian Games in 1994 in Hiroshima as a demonstration sport before being included more regularly at subsequent editions.

India’s best result came in the 2023 Hangzhou Asian Games when Jay Meena reached the quarterfinals. That performance, while falling short of the podium, demonstrated that Indian players could contend at higher levels with focused training and international exposure.

Om Yadav is part of the six-member squad for the Games. He is one of the two players picked for the team event. The squad is: Yogesh Choudhary, Om Yadav (men’s team), Aryan Thakur, Jay Meena (men’s singles, team), Aniket Chirag Patel (men’s team, mixed) and Aadhya Tiwari (women’s singles, mixed).

Soft tennis is played on tennis courts with softer balls. Singles matches are played over best-of-seven games and doubles over best-of-nine games.

“I am desperate to win the first Asian Games medal in soft tennis for India, I can do this,” said Om Yadav on Saturday after training at Fukushima where the Indian squad is undergoing its second international training programme.

“I never wanted to play soft tennis or even tennis in the beginning as I was an allrounder in my age group cricket in 2012, but NIS coach Vijay Pathak guided me to tennis and in 2018 I switched to soft tennis when my father’s friend insisted,” said Om, who has so far won over a dozen medals at the national championships in age-group competitions.

Om has won five gold, one silver and five bronze medals at international events, including three gold and a bronze medal at the U-21 Asian Soft Tennis Championship.

“Asian Games is a big stage where all the top guns of Asia, especially from Japan, China and Korea, will be there. I am excited and feel the pressure as well,” said Om, who has a silver in men’s singles, finishing behind India’s top player Jay Meena, in the second India International Soft Tennis Championship last year.

“Here at the training camp, we are working on our strategic approach, mainly focusing on sharpening technical skills and match awareness to handle the long rallies,” said Om.

In Japan, where soft tennis has strong cultural and institutional roots, the competition is expected to be formidable. Japanese players, who draw on home-grown expertise and structured development programmes, are perennial favorites.

India was a latecomer to organised soft tennis compared to East Asian powerhouses Japan, South Korea, and Chinese Taipei, where the sport enjoys significant institutional support and large participation bases.

Indians have faced an uphill battle due to limited funding, fewer dedicated coaches, and a small competitive circuit. Despite these constraints, Indian players have shown flashes of promise at continental meets and open tournaments.