Indian-origin Samir Banerjee lifts Wimbledon boys' singles title
London, Jul 11: Indo-American tennis player Samir Banerjee lifted the Wimbledon boys' singles title on Sunday, a remarkable triumph for the youngster who was testing his skills in a Grand Slam for only the second time in his fledgling career.
All of 17, the player from New Jersey just wanted to win a match at the biggest stage in the junior circuit, but little did he know that he would be the last boy standing at the hallowed grass courts.
And that too when he did not have his coach Carlos Esteban with him since his wife had reportedly tested positive for COVID-19.
Up against compatriot Victor Lilov, the teenager won 7-5 6-3 in the summit clash that lasted one hour 22 minutes. He broke his rival thrice and dropped serve only once in the facile triumph.
"It's going to be amazing, this trophy is going to be my centrepiece, I'm going to look at this and be inspired to keep playing and hopefully come back here as a pro," he was quoted as saying by the Wimbledon website.
"I really just wanted to win a round, I didn't expect this. I had a tough French Open, lost to a good player.
"So here I just wanted to keep my expectations low so that if I passed them, then I'd be happy. But this was way beyond my wildest dreams," he said to a round of applause from the crowd.
Since the coach was unavailable, Banerjee 's uncle Kanad accompanied him.
"My uncle is here, he's not technically a tennis coach, but if these results keep happening then I should start travelling with him more," he said jokingly.
As Lilov's backhand sailed over the baseline on match-point, Banerjee dropped his racquet, put both his hands on his head in disbelief as if to say that this was not what he expected to do but still accomplished.
"Remember the name - Samir Banerjee. The American wins his first junior Grand Slam singles title by beating Victor Lilov in the boys' singles final," the official twitter handle of the Championships posted.
Legendary Indian tennis player Vijay Amritraj congratulated Banerjee.
"Wonderful win for Indian American 17 yr old Samir Bannerjee in the boys singles at Wimbledon 2021. Wish him well for a great future," the 67-year old who reached singles quarterfinals at Wimbledon and US Open tweeted.
Banerjee's father Kunal was born in Assam, and his mother Usha was brought up in Andhra Pradesh before both migrated to the USA in the mid-1980s and got married there.
The youngster, reportedly, will take a break from the tour to enroll for a degree in either economics or political science at the Columbia University in the coming months.
While Banerjee's victory is a testament to the system that US Tennis Association has put in place, India has been struggling to field a worthy contender at junior Grand Slams for some time now.
Due to the lack of a robust domestic circuit and not having enough competitions at home to earn world ranking points, India has been struggling to create the next crop of youngsters.
Yuki Bhambri was the last Indian to win a junior singles title when he triumphed at the Australian Open in 2009 while Sumit Nagal won the Wimbledon boys' doubles event in 2015 with Vietnam's Ly Hoang Nam.
Ramanathan Krishnan was the first Indian to win a junior major when he won the 1954 Junior Wimbledon championship.
His son Ramesh Krishnan won the 1970 junior Wimbledon and junior French Open titles while Leander Paes won the 1990 junior Wimbledon and junior US Open.
Paes was also a runner-up at the junior Australian Open.
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Actress sexual assault: Court says Prosecution 'miserably' failed to prove conspiracy against Dileep
Kochi (PTI): The prosecution had "miserably" failed to prove the conspiracy charge against Dileep in the sensational 2017 actress sexual assault case, a local court has observed while citing inconsistencies and lack of sufficient evidence against the Malayalam star.
The full judgement of Ernakulam District and Principal Sessions Court Judge Honey M Varghese was released late on Friday, and has revealed the judge also pointing out at unsustainable arguments put forth by the prosecution.
"The prosecution miserably failed to prove the conspiracy between accused No.1 (Pulsar Suni) and accused No.8 (Dileep) in executing the offence against the victim," the court held.
It examined in detail, the prosecution's allegation that Dileep had hired the prime accused to sexually assault the survivor and record visuals, including close-up footage of a gold ring she was wearing, to establish her identity.
On page 1130 of the judgment, under paragraph 703, the court framed the issue as whether the prosecution's contention that NS Sunil (Pulsar Suni) recorded visuals of the gold ring worn by the victim at the time of the occurrence, so as to clearly disclose her identity, was sustainable.
The prosecution contended Dileep and Suni had planned the recording so that the actress' identity would be unmistakable, with the video of the gold ring intended to convince Dileep that the visuals were genuine.
However, the court noted that this contention was not stated in the first charge sheet and was introduced only in the second one.
As part of this claim, a gold ring was seized after the victim produced it before the police.
The court observed that multiple statements of the victim were recorded from February 18, 2017, following the incident, and that she first raised allegations against Dileep only on June 3, 2017.
Even on that day, nothing was mentioned about filming of the ring as claimed by the prosecution, the court said.
The prosecution failed to explain why the victim did not disclose this fact at the earliest available opportunities.
It further noted that although the victim had viewed the sexual assault visuals twice, she did not mention any specific recording of the gold ring on those occasions, which remained unexplained.
The court also examined the approvers' statements.
One approver told the magistrate that Dileep had instructed Pulsar Suni to record the victim's wedding ring.
The court observed that no such wedding ring was available with her at that time.
During the trial, the approver changed his version, the court said.
The Special Public Prosecutor put a leading question to the approver on whether Dileep had instructed the recording of the ring, after which he deposed that the instruction was to record it to prove the victim's identity.
The court observed that the approver changed his account to corroborate the victim's evidence.
When the same question was put to another approver, he repeated the claim during the trial but admitted he had never stated this fact before the investigating officer.
The court noted that the second approver even went to the extent of claiming Dileep had instructed the execution of the crime as the victim's engagement was over.
This showed that the evidence of the second approver regarding the shooting of the ring was untrue, as her engagement had taken place after the crime.
The court further observed that the visuals themselves clearly revealed the victim's identity and that there was no need to capture images of the ring to establish identity.
In paragraph 887, the court examined the alleged motive behind the crime and noted that in the first charge sheet, the prosecution had claimed that accused persons 1 to 6 had kidnapped the victim with the common intention of capturing nude visuals to extort money by threatening to circulate them and there was no mention about Dileep's role in it.
The court also rejected the prosecution's claim that the accused had been planning the assault on Dileep's instructions since 2013, noting that the allegation was not supported by reliable evidence.
It similarly ruled out the claim that Suni attempted to sexually assault the victim in Goa in January 2017, stating that witness statements showed no such misconduct when he served as the driver of the vehicle used by the actress there.
The court also discussed various controversies that followed Dileep's arrest and the evidence relied upon by the prosecution, ultimately finding that the case had not been proved.
Pronouning its verdict on the sensational case on December 8, the court acquitted Dileep and three others.
Later, the court sentenced six accused, including the prime accused Suni, to 20 years' rigorous imprisonment.
The assault on the multilingual actress, after the accused allegedly forced their way into her car and held it under their control for two hours on February 17, 2017, had shocked Kerala.
Pulsar Suni sexually assaulted the actress and video recorded the act with the help of the other convicted persons in the moving car.
