TRASK: Murali brings foreign flair to Bona tennis

TRASK: Murali brings foreign flair to Bona tennis

10/24/2003

The player sits alone in his room.
Two empty pizza boxes rest in a corner. An empty 20-ounce bottle of Diet Coke lies next to the abandoned Domino’s cardboard.
On the wall Muhammad Ali has knocked out Sonny Liston in the first round. On the wall Pearl Jam tears through a set.
On the wall an orange and green Indian flag hangs proudly.
The player sits on his unmade bed. The phone rings.

“I’ll call you back in 10 minutes.”
“On Sundays I try to do nothing,” he says. “I just watch TV all day.”
Nikhil Murali doesn’t do nothing often. He’s a junior in college trying to figure out what he wants to do with his life. He spends hours at a time working to produce a weekly newspaper.
And he’s a Division I tennis player who practices about 20 hours a week. He’s been 12th in the Indian juniors ranking. He went undefeated the weekend of Sept. 12 in the St. Bonaventure men’s Tennis Fall Classic. He won the doubles final, along with partner Alejandro Nery.
“The best part about playing matches is to be able to compete and to dominate,” Murali said.
It’s a lazy Sunday for the player. He watched movies. He can’t name a favorite. He watches the pictures to escape from the long work week.
He practices on the court six days a week. He lifts weights twice a week. He goes to class and he serves as assistant news editor for the campus newspaper, The Bona Venture.
Just over two years ago the 20-year-old came to St. Bonaventure from New Delhi, India.
Michael Bates, the Bonnies men’s tennis coach, discovered Murali while scouting another player. Bates was recruiting Partha Bhattaacharya, now at the University of Rochester, when Murali’s name came up.

“He was an Indian kid living in Florida and looking for a school,” Murali said.
The two players were friends and from that connection Murali ended up a Bonnie.
Bates said Murali has been a great addition to the eight-man team.
“He’s not very vocal, but he’s a leader,” Bates said. “He’s an intelligent guy. When he speaks, people listen.”
Murali didn’t come to the Southern Tier a natural leader. In his third year the journalism/mass communication leader has grown.
And it’s not just muscle.
“I think in the beginning it was tough because he never played on a team before,” Bates said. “I think your teammates’ relying on you is more pressure.”
In his native India Murali had primarily played solo. Now he’s a vital piece of the Bonnies.
Atlantic 10 coaches have often praised Murali’s doubles play and how quickly he reacts at the net, Bates said. This year he’s expected to step up and play better singles.
Murali traveled to Holland last summer to work with his uncle and coach, Praveen Wilson.
“I did a lot of growing up,” Murali said. “I learned my priorities.”
The first priority will be tennis.
“I realize that to play good tennis I have to go a little slow on the partying,” he said. “I’m happier when I’m playing good tennis than when I’m partying.”
People from the other parts of the player’s life haven’t seemed to notice that academics and writing might be taking a backseat to the game. On Wednesday night Murali sat on a couch in The Bona Venture’s newsroom studying a style book. The paper’s production nights tend to run a bit long. That seemingly hasn’t affected him.

Torre Catalano, editor in chief of the paper, said the player holds a key position in his staff.
“He’s a dedicated kid,” he said. “He’s the one staffer you can count on to be in the zone when it’s crunch time.”
Dennis Wilkins, Murali’s academic advisor, praised the student.
“If he wants to he will be a first-rate journalist,” he said.
Bates said he’s glad the player has interests outside of the game.
“I think it’s good for him,” the coach said. “I think if he didn’t explore a lot of areas he would get bored.”
But, the player doesn’t necessarily want to be a writer forever. He chose journalism as a major because he enjoys writing and “didn’t see anything else” he wanted to do.
For now Murali just wants to follow the same path that brought him to St. Bonaventure.
“Right now my plan is to play good tennis and see where it takes me,’ he said.
Murali doesn’t say “um” or “like.” He thinks before he speaks and looks people in the eye. He has a confidence about him that trusts his play on the court will lead him to where he wants to go. It led him to college and has earned him an education.
The game has taken him around the globe, to places where people twice his age dream of vacationing — Japan, Southeast Asia and Belgium among the stops.
“I don’t think of him as a tennis player first,” Wilkins, a journalism professor, said. “He’s an exceptional writer.”
Murali looks forward to going home this December to see his father, a customs officer in the Indian government who brought his son to a tennis club when the boy was five. His mother passed away when he was young. It will be only his second trip home since he arrived on campus 25 months ago.
He claimed the continental transition wasn’t that hard and that he struggled with mostly small nuances of American culture.
“When I first came here I never heard the expression ‘what’s up?’’” Murali said. “It’s just a small thing that confused the hell out of me.”
He enjoys St. Bonaventure and tries not to concern himself with too much outside of his immediate responsibilities.
His laid back and soft spoken demeanor helps him along. He impresses most people he encounters.
It’s more than tennis or academics. It’s the total package Murali brings with him.
“He’s a confident kid,” Catalano said.” But, he doesn’t let you know how good he is. He’s got a lot to brag about, but he doesn’t.”
(Mike Trask, a senior at St. Bonaventure, is a part-time reporter for The Times Herald.)