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 life, early and/or life:
“... goodness is of a modest nature, easily discouraged, and when much elbowed in early life by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into extreme privacy, so that it is more easily believed in by those who construct a selfish old gentleman theoretically, than by those who form the narrower judgments based on his personal acquaintance.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)
“In an early spring
We see th’appearing buds, which to prove fruit
Hope gives not so much warrant, as despair
That frosts will bite them.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“There are situations in life to which the only satisfactory response is a physically violent one. If you don’t make that response, you continually relive the unresolved situation over and over in your life.”
—Russell Hoban (b. 1925)