AITA gives away Wimbledon tickets for free

There were as many as 6005 names in the list, comprising mostly of players registered with the AITA and many others related to the game from clubs.

Representational image: The Wimbledon centre court.

The All India Tennis Association (AITA) Trust in an attractive inititative to inspire tennis players and enthusiasts across the country, gave away 10 Wimbledon tickets along with Rs.20,000 each through a draw. In the draw held at the R.K. Khanna Stadium in New Delhi on Friday, under the supervision of the administrator of the AITA Trust, V.K. Batra, and Prashant Menon, ten names were drawn through the computer application, The Hat. There were as many as 6005 names in the list, comprising mostly of players registered with the AITA and many others related to the game from clubs.

Devasree TV, Vijay Sappi, Adwaita Nagar, Harwin Singh, Dhananjay Athreya, Prakash Saran, Shivansh Singhal, Nikhil Verma, Drishti Abhishek Jain, Pranav Heggere were the names that emerged from the draw.

Except for Vijay Sappi, a 38-year-old from Bengaluru, the others are in the age group of 9 to 16.

Interestingly, nine-year-old Prakash Saran is the son of former National women’s champion Archana Venkataraman.

Former National women's tennis champion Archana Venkataraman and with son Prakash Saran.

When contacted in Bengaluru, Archana was quite thrilled and said that it would be a dream experience for her son to be at Wimbledon at such a young age. She said that she would do everything possible to take her son to London, even though there was no clarity about the Wimbeldon ticket for the accompanying parent. From TV Devasree in Kolathur in Chennai, Adwaita Nagar from Ahmedabad, Harwin in Mohali, Nikhil Verma in Delhi to Drishti Jain in Surat, the names were drawn from a wide range.

"We hope everyone is able to take the tickets and visit Wimbledon. The tickets are not transferable, and the rules are very strict. We have not planned about the next step, in case some of the tickets are not accepted by the winners, for whatever reasons", said VK Batra. "We will communicate with the ten winners, through email and phone over the next couple of days. There is enough time to take the UK visa", said Prashant Menon.

The tickets are likely be for the first week of the Wimbledon fortnight. The tournament is scheduled from July 1 to 14 this season.