Early Life
Somdev was born in a Tripuri Hindu family in Guwahati, Assam to Ranjana and Pravanjan Dev Varman, a retired income tax commissioner. He belongs to the Indian state of Tripura. His family shifted to Calcutta when he was 3 to 4 months old and stayed there till the age of 8. His father's work took the family to Madras (Chennai), Tamil Nadu where Somdev grew up, beginning tennis at age 9 and studied at Asan memorial School. Devvarman started competing in futures tournaments in 2002 aged 17. His biggest achievement during this time was a victory in the Kolkata F2 championship in 2004 after which he rose to 666 in world ranking. He moved to the USA later that year and competed less regularly while at the University of Virginia. Somdev, while at college, won the 2007 NCAA Singles Championship by defeating Georgia Bulldog's senior, the No. 1 seed John Isner in the final. A year later he defeated Tennessee's J.P. Smith to win his consecutive NCAA Singles National Championship. Devvarman becomes the 13th player in the 124-year history of the tournament to win consecutive titles, and just the fourth to do so in the past 50 years with an unprecedented 44–1 record in 2008. Somdev finished University with a degree in sociology and turned pro in the summer of 2008. He won his first career title that year at a Futures Tournament in Rochester, New York. The University of Virginia retired Devvarman's jersey in 2009. At the end of 2010, he was felicitated by the Tamil Nadu Tennis Association in Chennai.
Read more about this topic: Somdev Devvarman
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“A two-year-old can be taught to curb his aggressions completely if the parents employ strong enough methods, but the achievement of such control at an early age may be bought at a price which few parents today would be willing to pay. The slow education for control demands much more parental time and patience at the beginning, but the child who learns control in this way will be the child who acquires healthy self-discipline later.”
—Selma H. Fraiberg (20th century)
“I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the strongest. What force has a multitude? They can only force me who obey a higher law than I.... I do not hear of men being forced to live this way or that by masses of men. What sort of life were that to live?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)