For B. Pratyusha, life has continued to pose challenges ever since she became the third woman Grandmaster from Andhra Pradesh and Telangana in January last year.
Only last week, the former Asian under-18 gold medallist was relieved to see her mother Satyadevi come back home from the hospital after a grim battle with COVID-19 which had also dwindled her financial resources.
Online coaching
“Well, now I have started online coaching to about 20 players and taking classes at some academies abroad. Though it was difficult initially, I got used to coaching now and also feeling that my game is improving because of the in-depth study I had to make to teach these boys and girls,” she explained.
The 23-year-old Pratyusha, now dependent only on the scholarship of Airports Authority of India, is struggling on the financial front as the pandemic put the brakes on her aspirations since last year when it broke across the world. Her ELO was stuck at 2329 since last May because of the disruption in the competition schedule.
READ: WGM Pratyusha training for six hours daily
“I must say that the long break came at the wrong time. I was at the peak of my career when I earned the WGM title. After that I played only one on-board event and a few online (mostly for charity),” Pratyusha said in a chat with Sportstar from her residence in Narsipatnam (Visakhapatnam).
“I was not even sure where my life was heading ever since the pandemic broke out early last year,” she said. “I need a decent job for sure to hire a GM for training to realise the dream of being a world champion one day,” she said.
“Frankly, it should take me just two months of full-time preparations to be ready for the challenges for on-board competitions at the highest level,” said Pratyusha who represented India in the 2016 Olympiad.
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