Passion alone cannot win you tennis matches. You need to back it up with loads of hard work, a proper work ethic and a good coach who can help out with the funda-mentals. Well, Navdeep Singh, 17, is just about all this.. His accent might be Brit, but deep down he is an Indian at heart as he revelled under pressure on the first day of the DSCL Open National Tennis Championship in the under-18 category. There are few Indians who think big when they step out in the lonely world of tennis. It takes a lot, even as a junior to make the big push. Just that in Navdeep's case, he has been lucky he has a father, known to friends as DJ Singh, who has been backing him to the hilt. Having been bred on the courts in Dubai, Navdeep must thank his dad for early initiation into the sport. ¡§He was six when he first picked up a  racquet,¡¨ says DJ Singh. But the real step towards achieving the goal of becoming somebody on the circuit started around two years ago when Navdeep was sent to Manchester for training under John Hicks, who had coached Tim Henman as a junior. The cynic might wonder why one earth would one send a kid to Britain, which has been struggling to produce a champion of its own and does not hesitate in importing players. But Navdeep's father thinks there is nothing wrong with the place where his son is now. Playing tennis at this intensity under a good coach costs a bomb. But the 2500 pounds per month which Navdeep¡¦s father is shelling out for his tennis plus lodging is a make or break situation. There are a few who have done it before as well. Just that, when the goals are in sight, the vision can never get myopic.  A first look suggests  Navdeep has worked hard on the basics. He serves clean, generates decent pace, and can produce a sound mix of shots from the rear and at the net. But against an opponent like Wrik Ganguly from Delhi, Navdeep needed to be on his toes. Wrik is like the wily fox  who can make life miserable for the opponent with his slice and dice strategy. It worked against Navdeep as well as he was skinning the felt of the ball and giving little pace. First set over, Navdeep needed to wake up. There was no way a boy who has been taking part in ITF events abroad would struggle against someone like Wrik who hardly ever travels abroad. Navdeep showed he was not going to get frustrated. He did not change his own game-plan, and showed he could attack when the chips were down. Second set to Navdeep and he was firing on all cylinders. The sun played hide and seek but Navdeep made sure he was not going to make heavy weather of this match and closed out the third set in quick time.