HYDERABAD: Sports brought them together and it separated them too. Nicolette Fernandes, a member of the World International Squash Players Association and Ramnaresh Sarwan, West Indies cricketer, were together for three years, but tours and commitment to their careers, saw them fall apart.
“We’re still friends but not close,” reveals Nicolette, here to take part in the WISPA Qatar Airways Challenge World Women’s Squash Championship. “He is a great guy and I always wish him the best and he too wants me to do the best in my game.”
Sarwan and Nicolette first met five years back at a function in Kingston when they were felicitated as the best sportsman and woman of Guyana. The relationship blossomed a few years later. “We’re good friends and make it a point to meet whenever we are at home. That’s it. Nothing beyond,” Nico, as she loves to be called, says pleading, “Please do not make it a big issue.”
Nico is a good athlete, an assiduous trainer, and in a different way assured too. Her relaxed approach to the trial of match play is redolent of her region. How many players does one see smile wryly and applaud a genuinely great get by her opponent. She does.
“I love the game and enjoy. And so whenever I lose a point it’s better to smile rather than weep over it,” says Nicoelette. “I don’t feel that she controlled the game, but it was just that I was not shaping up and did not put her under pressure,” she says.
Nicolette aims to put her country in the international squash map. Ranked 38 in the WISPA, she upset the 11th rankled Annelize Naude of Netherlands in her opening main draw. But she looks forward for much bigger mark. “I could be ranked in 30s but I want to be among the top 15 so that I will not have to play the qualifying round in this level of competition.”
