One day at a time, one match at a time. I don’t want to look too far ahead: Mukund Sasikumar

Mukund Sasikumar was rapidly working his way through a jar of Nutella when the doorbell to his apartment in Vienna cut into his thoughts. He was just back from a five-week trip to the United States, where he played Challenger tournaments, starting in Las Vegas and finishing at Champaign, Illinois. He didn’t make a single main draw in the four tournaments, winning just three qualifying matches.

The 25-year-old’s ranking had tumbled to the 420s, down 200 slots from his best. He was also 10 kilos overweight, heavier from the burgers and ice creams he was treating himself to generously. Mukund’s coach of four years, Martin Spottl, was at the door, he was accompanied by a question that had nagged him for a couple of months.

“We are going nowhere,” Spottl declared to his charge last October. “Either you say, the virus came, and I didn’t make it and end it right here, or you give me the same work ethic that you had… One more time.” Spottl, a former pro, whose career-best ranking of 181 was achieved in 2000, is not one to hang around. “I will respect whatever choice you make,” the 46-year-old said before landing a line ball, “but before you decide, ask yourself if you can live with the fact that you gave up…” Mukund, who was months shy of his 25th birthday at the time, sealed the pot of Nutella and left it on the kitchen counter, where it sits untouched even today.

A reminder of his commitment. “I can’t live with regret,” he told TOI in early March in Bengaluru, where he was playing an ITF M15 event. “How do you live with the fact that you let a virus destroy your tennis career?” Mukund, 6’1’’ and a weighty striker of the ball, was one of India’s breakout tennis players in 2019 when he climbed to a career-best ranking of 229,