THIS week we look at a tennis player who has been plying her trade competitively for the past nine years and has made strides in crafting her skills but isn’t as much in the limelight as she should be.She is a quiet, pleasant young lady and while she may not be the most aggressive player you’ll meet, she’s still one very competitive tennis player.
Nicola Ramdyhan started training and playing tennis when she was seven years old, but she started playing just for fun when she was much younger.
Most recently the double-handed backhand player ended as one of Guyana’s best players at the Inter-Guiana Games Tennis Tournament in French Guiana, where, despite the fact that the team lost overall, she won all of her matches.
She is also the reigning Bakewell Junior Tennis Open Girls’Under-18 champion and finished as the runner-up in the GBTI Open Ladies singles. Her GBTI loss closed off her three-year monopoly on the title.
But it has not always been wins for this 18-year-old, former St Joseph High student. Nicola is the embodiment of perseverance.
Nicola did not start off as the top player. She suffered a lot of losses especially when competing at regional and international tournaments. She had to come to grips with just how far behind tennis in Guyana was even at the junior level.
But eventually Nicola was able to achieve her first regional win. Her choice word to describe the success? Overjoyed!
“That was like proof to show that despite what we didn’t have, we’re still able to compete at the same level with other Caribbean players.”
Nicola says she endured through it all because her mom and coach, Shelly Daly-Ramdyhan prepared her early on for the reality of the level that tennis was in Guyana.
“I didn’t feel so badly about losing, at an early age. I had already understood that Guyana compared to other countries was not as privileged to have proper facilities and enough training time; so my coach told me to just go out there and play the best that I could, I had nothing to lose. So I wasn’t feeling bad about how I lost, and I actually gained a lot of experience from that.” Nicola related.
These days Nicola is still focused on enhancing her skills and dreams big of making it as a professional player. While she waits for her skills to reach its full potential, she’s looking towards an opportunity to be able to study and train.
“Right now for me I’m just hoping to get into college using tennis as a platform,” she concluded.