His first slams began this way

The history of Brian Panta started breaking flower bases at home and continues breaking his own record worldwide, despite the few support.

 

By Jhon Fernández Dediós

 

)The next video’s audio contains a narration in Spanish by the author of this story.)

 

 

This is the story of a true champion – a Piura-native teenager who overcame defeating many contenders. He was 14 when he began but he spoke with the madurity of an 18-year-old man, although for moments, he let to set free his boy’s spirit who enjoys playing with his younger brother and sister, or listening to the music on his MP3 device.

 

Jorge Brian Panta Herreros (Piura, Peru, 1995)had me quiet and humble. I met him training at Piura’s Country Club. He had no super-star attitude. He knew where he rran to, and he knew it since he was a little boy when he took his first tennis racket at his 6. Many broken flower bases and accessories were the proof of his sport power at his humble home in Chiclayito Bourgh, Castilla City (Piura), where he still lived.

 

His talent for tennis was discovered by his father, Jorge Panta Yarlequé, who was his personal trainer. “Since I saw him to play for the first time… I bet for him and I wasn’t wrong,” he told proud. Not indeed, and the proof of that has been the many medals he has got in different tournaments he joined nationwide, worldwide.

 

Brian was the number 1 in South America(for many years) and held a fair record that many foreigner tennis players already wished to have. He’s been admired worldwide because of his excellent technique and the courage which he’s faced every match. The specialized press has tagged him as the sucesor of Luis Horna, the new Jaime Yzaga, among other promising labels.

 

“Do you believe you are the sucessor of Horna or Yzaga?,” I asked him. “Maybe,” he answered me. “The important is I prove it, and I’ll gonna do,” the champion said. So far bloating, Brian stepped heavy on the soilbut he also dreamed of reaching the Moon, “if possible.” One of his goals has been scoring among the ten best ttennis players in the world.

 

He admires Switzerland’s Roger Federer because of his elegant sstyle and because he’s a gentleman. That is for him very important because he believes the tennis player must be a good player but also a good person.

 

Indifference and discrimination

Nothing has been easy for Brian. He might not defeat only his temporary rivals but a biggest rival – the indifference of the authorities who haven’t given him the needed support. Indifference of some people who have discriminated him because he’s a humble-origin boy, because he’s not blonde, because he’s not green-eyed, because he comes from a province, or simply because his lastname is Panta and he doesn’t have a ‘cool’ lastname like others.

 

That rival has been perhaps the most difficult to defeat along his career because it doesn’t slam with a racket but it slams hard in the deepest of soul. Sad experiences of this kind are many but he and his father prefer to forget them. “For what to remember’em?,” they said, but I think it’s fair to say, too ashamed, he was denied in his own homeland to have a field for his daily training, that in his own homeland neither the regional government nor the municipality supported him despite he represented Piura out to the world.

 

His parent’s effort has been extreme.”I’m in debt, I’ve even put my home for mortgage, and many times we’ve even leave to eat to fundraise his sport career,” his father commented and a knot blocked his throat., but he had faith that the future is going to be different and that anguishness will become smiles. “This sport is economically expensive and that’s why we need the support of everybody for the Brian’s dream doesn’t stop as it happened to others,” he mentioned.

 

Like in politics, unfortunately the sport also suffer from that terrible disease called bureaucracy. The support the Tennis Federation sent to him was very few. Only some leaders or some companies have sponsored him. Other countries have offered him to play for their teams (Argentina and Canada, I mean) but he has refused and he still prefers to be in Peru. “But if the situation complicates, we don’t discard these offers for the good of Brian’s career,” his dad commented.

 

Tennis players of a kind

The Panta-Herreros Family carries the tennis into the veins. The dad, Jorge Panta Yarlequé, was a tennis playerat his youth and he has been trainer at Piura’s Country Club. Brian has a younger brother, Gianfranco, and sister, Patricia, who slam very good to the racket. Patricia has been the number 1 in sub-12 category nationwide and Gianfranco has been considered a referent of Peruvian tennis in spite of his short age.

 

I talked to Brian a day before he traveled to the European Tour. “Compared to soccer, this tour is like a Champions League where the best contest,” his father commented me. It began in France, continued in Germany and Netherlands, and finished in Belgium. Later, he participated in the Tennis World Champion in his category (in Czech Republic), something we don’t get in soccer many years ago, and that Brian got twice based upon much effort.

 

After that first story I made in 2009, the recognizement started to come in.

 

Original version: © 2009 Intelta. All Rights Reserved.