At 4pm on Saturday in the English city of Hull, Ramit Tandon was going through his final practice sessions ahead of the qualifying rounds of the British Open. Coming off a PSA Tour title win in Abu Dhabi and with a world rank of 65, the third-highest-placed Indian player had leapfrogged 428 places from where he was in the international charts exactly a year back. However, he readily admitted feeling a touch of nerves ahead of one of the most prestigious tournaments of the squash calendar.
Tandon, 25, is still getting used to that pre-tournament stress. That's because until very recently he was used to another sort of restlessness around this time of day. Back when he was an analyst at a New York hedge fund, 4pm meant his day was beginning to wind down. "The New York Stock Exchange's closing bell is at 4pm," Tandon recalls. "I've probably been working since 6.30 in the morning, so you keep track of the clock when the market is about to close."
The journey from researching multimillion-dollar trades in a bankers' suit in an office cubicle in Manhattan to the rough and tumble of professional squash inside a Plexiglass box was a while in the making. Tandon had been a promising player in his youth, helping India win a team silver at the U-21 World Cup. "He was an absolutely exceptional talent," says national coach Cyrus Poncha. "He had just incredible hands." But while many of his teammates -- Dipika Pallikal had been his teammate at the U-21 World Cup -- dived into the professional circuit, the Kolkata-born Tandon decided to pursue a collegiate career while studying statistics at New York's Columbia University.
Squash was never too far behind though. "I always knew I would be playing squash and I chose to study in New York because the squash culture there is of the highest standard," says Tandon. "A lot of the best squash players in the world train there. My toughest rival was [Harvard player] Ali Farag, who is the current world number two. So I didn't have any easy games."
"I always knew I would be playing squash and I chose to study in New York because the squash culture there is of the highest standard. A lot of the best squash players in the world train there."
While Tandon built up a healthy rivalry with Farag, he also found a kinship in another Egyptian -- the legendary Ramy Ashour. "Ramy trains in New York," Tandon says of the three-time World Open winner. "So when he found out I was studying, he would drop me a text when he wanted to train." That contact with Ashour would come in handy even after Tandon graduated with a degree in statistics and began a career working at the billion-dollar hedge fund Birch Grove Capital. The move to a career in the financial capital of the world had seemed an obvious one. "All my friends who I trained with in squash were in finance," he says. "So I had a lot of hedge-fund managers came up to me and asking if I wanted to work with them. I also wanted to see what the real world was like, so I decided to give it a shot."
He had felt he would be able to balance his job with his passion for squash. "My day would begin at 630 in the morning because I had to be at work before the trading session started," Tandon says. "Luckily the New York Athletic Club, where I trained, was close to my office. So I would leave my kitbag over there and once the markets closed and the day wound down, I would get back there and train."
Waiting for him would be Ashour. "It was incredible to be training alongside someone like Ashour," he says. "I just learned so much from him about the mental side of the sport. That kept my game at a very high level." That intensity of training was especially important since Tandon was not getting nearly enough match practice. "I couldn't take a break from my office if I wanted to play a tournament. If anything I would time my vacations in such a way that I could use those days to play a tournament."
The results were not too bad. In one of his earliest tournaments, the Tournament of Champions in New York, Tandon would beat his college rival Farag. Eventually though, the lack of match practice began to tell.
"In my second year, I lost to a top 30 player," Tandon says. "I felt I was playing better in practice than during a match. I realized I was not going to get better until I started playing matches. Until I got more match practice, the edginess and nervousness I felt before a tournament would not go away. I couldn't imagine myself being a recreational squash player. I couldn't work a 6am to 6pm shift and then train. I spoke to Rami and he kept telling me I had the ability to do well as a professional."
It wasn't the easiest of decisions to quit his job. What helped though was the fact his bosses backed his call. "I asked whether I could give my squash career a couple of years," Tandon says. "Luckily most of my bosses were keen squash players. So they were very supportive." Indeed, Birch Grove Capital is now one of his sponsors -- as is another hedge fund, Talmage. "I still feel I work there," jokes Tandon.
Making the shift back to professional squash was challenging in its own way. "It takes time for your body to adjust from a desk job to one in which you are training three times a day," he says. "It was a hard for me to constantly be travelling from one tournament to another but I had to because I had to get my ranking up quickly."
His results suggest Tandon's decision has paid off. He is ranked 65 and improving each month. He has consistently beaten players ranked above him, including current world No. 24 Borja Golan at the CCI International in Mumbai last year, world No. 47 Arturo Salazar at the Tournament of Champions in New York and, most recently, world No. 41 Omar Meguid in Abu Dhabi.
"I don't want to put any targets for myself. I just want to play as much as I can. I can't compare myself with the other guys because I haven't been playing full time until recently. I still have a lot of nervousness in tournaments."
Coach Poncha reckons Tandon still has plenty of room for improvement. "He has phenomenal skills, which is why he has been able to do as well as he has," he says. "But he needs to get more experience and he needs to improve his physical fitness to a level that can match that of the world's elite players."
Tandon hasn't set himself any target for the British Open. He admits that in comparison to many of his peers he has started at a disadvantage. "I don't want to put any targets for myself," he says. "I just want to play as much as I can. I can't compare myself with the other guys because I haven't been playing full time until recently. I still have a lot of nervousness in tournaments. It still takes me time to get used to the match pressure. I know I will have some disappointing matches but I will have to accept that."
Despite his current occupation, Tandon hasn't entirely left his previous career behind. "I still keep in touch with my colleagues and I will relax by tracking stocks!" he says. He now sees the two occupations as being symbiotic. "The pressure and atmosphere of working as a finance analyst is similar to being on a court," he says. "You have to process a lot of stuff in a very short amount of time and a single mistake could cost millions of dollars."
When Tandon eventually hangs up his squash racket, he plans to head back to his old job. "I can't imagine myself in a job that is slow-paced," he says. "That pressure attracts me a little bit."