The Hyderabad duo K S Ravinder Reddy and P Krishna Chaitanya recently won the 16th Senior National beach volleyball championship in Calicut, Kerala. Although they did not have any beach in Hyderabad they won the championship. They proved that with the hard work one can reach the goal.

They practiced in an artificial sand court in Musheerabad. Chaitanya said that “We had an artificial sand court at our expense. Out of our own personal interest, we chose beach volleyball ahead of indoor volleyball.”

This is not the first time the boys made the city proud before the State bifurcation Ravinder and his ex-partner Kashi Vishwanath dominated the scene for few years. As fate would have it, Ravindra along with his partner Chaitanya beat his ex-partner too on the way to the title. “We have been a dominant force throughout the history of the tournament. It’s either us or Tamil Nadu who gets the trophy every time.”

It’s not a surprise that the talented team had to suffer on account of lack of funds. Representing country abroad still remains a distant dream for Chaitanya.As for Ravinder, the veteran has represented India once at the Asian games 2010, held in Guangzhou.

He narrowly missed out on representing the country at Incheon games too. “We were all set to go for Inchon. We also had a camp in Chennai, but last moment, it was cancelled,” Ravindra said.” We don’t get enough support from the VFI.

“We have to shell out our own money to participate in tournaments,” added Ravinder. But now the focus is on the youngster Chaitanya, who with his Goa partner Prahlad, will take a shot at qualifying for the Rio Olympics. “ That won’t come easy,” said Chaitanya in a meek voice.”The third leg of the qualifiers will be in Bangkok, Thailand, and we will have to play out of our skin to win,” he added.