You don’t have any Active Subscription.
Subscribed with another email? Logout and Login with that one.
Account subscription benefits alongside Premium Stories, Editorials, Opinions and more. Unlock these with Subscription
Weather News October 31, 2026 e-Paper
The View From India Looking at World Affairs from the Indian perspective.
First Day First Show News and reviews from the world of cinema and streaming.
Today's Cache Your download of the top 5 technology stories of the day.
Science For All The weekly newsletter from science writers takes the jargon out of science and puts the fun in!
Data Point Decoding the headlines with facts, figures, and numbers
THEdge At the cutting edge of education and careers
Health Matters Ramya Kannan writes to you on getting to good health, and staying there
Gender Agenda Stories from beyond the binary.
The Hindu On Books Books of the week, reviews, excerpts, new titles and features.
Updated - July 14, 2025 09:08 pm IST - NEW DELHI
Tennis player Srishti Kiran got to see the cockpit of American Airlines flight while flying from Miami to Paris to make the Asian under-14 team for a series of tournaments in Europe as part of ITF Development programme. | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
Srishti Kiran had a memorable time reaching Europe from her training base in Florida, USA, when called to make the Asian under-14 team as part of the Grand Slam Player Development Programme (GSPDP) of the International Tennis Federation (ITF)
It was Jensi Kanabar who was selected following back to back girls singles titles over a fortnight in the Asian event held in Delhi. Jensi who made it to the Wimbledon under-14 event, could not accept the invitation for Europe.
The 13-year-old Srishti had directly left for USA after the Asian event in April, in Delhi, with her father. Once the opportunity came from the Asian Tennis Federation and ITF, the necessary clearance was quickly procured for Srishti.
Since the ITF does not allow parents to accompany the players, and there would be dedicated coaches to take care of them, Srishti had to fly alone from USA to Paris.
“Originally her ticket was from West Palm Beach International report, which was close to the academy where she trains. However, due to bad weather at her connecting centre, the airlines was not allowing unaccompanied minor passengers. Instead, they gave another ticket from Miami to Dallas and to Paris,” recalled Srishti’s father, Kiran Gopalrajan, about the tension of the lonely travel for the kid.
The tricky part was that Srishti had to rush to the Miami airport, 130 kilometres away, to board the flight..
“Midway through the flight, the American airlines upgraded Srishti to business class. She even got to experience the cockpit,” said the proud father, who could not even go to Europe to drop Srishti owing to things beyond his control.
After a three-day camp in Paris, Srishti would be competing in a tournament in France this week. Thereafter, she will have another tournament in France, before the Asian team moves to Germany and Belgium.
The coaches, Czarina Arevalo of the Philippines, Matrin Setiawan of Indonesia and Ranil Harshana Sri Lanka, accompany the Asian players.
Published - July 14, 2025 08:01 pm IST
Copyright© 2026, THG PUBLISHING PVT LTD. or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.
Terms & conditions | Institutional Subscriber
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of The Hindu and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.
Loading comments…