Jahnavi Parekh Taking Her Game To The Next Level
10/26/2000 12:00:00 AM | Women's Tennis
Oct. 26, 2000
Editor's Note: Articles such as this one by Rob Sinclair appear in each edition of the Baylor Bear Insider Report, available upon membership in the Baylor Bear Foundation. For information on joining the Bear Foundation, click here.
Jahnavi Parekh loves the game of tennis.
Practice six days a week when her age was still in the single digits? Sure. Work out for two hours every morning during her summer vacation? Love to. Brave 40-degree temperatures to play in a non-conference tournament? Wouldn't miss it for the world.
It is this kind of work ethic that has catapulted Baylor's Parekh to her No. 13 ranking. Of course, she is not ranked No. 13 in the Big 12 Conference, or even in the state of Texas. She is ranked No. 13 in the entire NCAA.
"I should be that right now," Parekh said of her national ranking. "I was ranked eighth last year, and then lost two straight matches and that hurt me a lot. My overall goal is to be top-five."
IT IS AN AMBITION that is not far-fetched. In only two years at Baylor, Parekh has done some good things. She has been named to the All-Big 12 team in both singles and doubles, and last year had the best record at No. 1 singles of any player in the conference.
The root of her accomplishments, however, reaches far beyond the day in 1999 that she first set foot on the campus. Parekh's story began almost 15 years ago, on a couch with her aunt, watching television, in the Indian city that went by the name of Bombay at the time.
"I lived with my aunt," Parekh began, "and we were watching Wimbledon when I was seven. She just randomly asked me if I wanted to play this game, and I said yes. And that's about it, that's how I started playing."
PAREKH, WHOSE first name is synonymous with the holy river Ganges, began practicing three times a week at the state association courts in Bombay, which is now called Mumbai. Her play soon caught the collective eye of her instructors, who informed Parekh's aunt that her niece was one of the best players. At the age of nine, Parekh's practice time doubled to six days a week.
As time went on, Parekh began entering tournaments, but found that funding was increasingly hard to come by.
"You need sponsors even for small tournaments," she said. "It was really hard in India, that was one of the reasons I came to college."
Parekh enrolled in Sydenham College, an affiliate of Bombay University, to continue her education while still playing in selected tournaments. She participated in a handful of junior international events, and also participated as an amateur in a couple of professional tournaments. With sponsorship opportunities few and far between, however, Parekh began to explore her other options, including coming to America to play and study.
Parekh's aunt, Prafullu Shah, did not want her niece to leave. Parekh's mother (Shah's sister) died of cancer shortly after giving birth, and since that time Shah has filled the role of mother to her niece. Now her child would be going to America, a place 8,800 miles and 10 time zones away. Enter Baylor.
"My aunt is everything to me," Parekh said. "My aunt didn't really want me to go away. I'd just be so far away from home and her, and we have such a small family of three people. Then Baylor called, and suddenly she just changed her mind. She visited me at Christmas and was very happy."
BAYLOR HEAD COACH Dave Luedtke was the man responsible for recruiting Parekh.
"She's a talented player," Luedtke said. "She has tremendous focus and concentration. She has gears, and she can turn it up."
Parekh fit in easily, thanks in large part to her childhood in Mumbai.
"It's something like New York," she said. "It's about 12 or 15 million people, and it's a cosmopolitan city. Life is really, really fast. It's a concrete jungle. I love that place. I've been living there 19 years of my life."
This summer, Parekh went home for the first time in a year and a half.
"It was indescribable," she said. "Nothing had changed. I went shopping with my aunt, and I had two really good friends and I saw them there.
"After I got back for two or three weeks, it was crazy, I just felt so homesick. And I haven't felt that way in the past one-and-a-half years."
She survived, though, and plans on being in Waco for the foreseeable future.
"I want to do my Masters of Accountancy (from Baylor), but I also want to play some pro tennis," she said. "So I'm still contemplating if I want to do my Master's and then play, or play and then come back and do my Master's. I would love to play pro tennis, but it depends on whether I find a sponsor."
Once Parekh does get on the court, be it professionally or otherwise, the results are usually in her favor. She says the reason is her calm demeanor that allows her to stay level-headed.
"I've changed a lot as a player," she commented. "I had a lot of tantrums on the court, and I used to get angry really fast. I kind of still do in practice, but not during the match. I'm a lot more calm, and that gives me the ability to think when I'm under pressure or in a bad situation."
Luedtke agreed, saying Parekh had improved her intensity and the duration of her intensity very much.
"She knows what it takes," he said. "She's internally motivated. Match in and match out, she pushes herself."
Another advantage for Parekh is her fitness level and her commitment to being in better shape than her opponents.
"I LOVE WORKING OUT," she said with a smile. "My boyfriend calls me a workout maniac. I love practicing, I love being out there, hitting balls every day."
As for her senior season, Parekh wants to go out in a blaze of glory. Already in the fall season, she claimed first place in No. 1 singles and doubles at the Baylor Tennis Classic, and almost all of Baylor's key components return from last year's Big 12 Conference runner-up team, including Katja Kovac, Vida Mulec and Frida Borjesson.
"It's a new year, and we're going to continue to raise the bar," Luedtke said. "We want to push inside number 19. We're going to work hard daily, improve day-to-day individually, and that will help our team goals."
Parekh even hinted at the possibility that Baylor could finally defeat longtime nemesis the University of Texas.
"Realistically, we can be top-10," she said. "We proved it by going up from 43 to 19 last year. That's a big jump in one year. "Texas is a hard one but it's not impossible."
Editor's Note: Articles such as this one by Rob Sinclair appear in each edition of the Baylor Bear Insider Report, available upon membership in the Baylor Bear Foundation. For information on joining the Bear Foundation, click here.
