RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

From the ten­nis court to the mu­sic stage, 27-year-old Sherisse Ar­joon has trans­formed ad­ver­si­ty in­to pur­pose, turn­ing an un­time­ly back in­jury in­to a pow­er­ful mis­sion of men­tor­ship.

Orig­i­nal­ly from the oil­fields of Fyz­abad, Ar­joon is the coach be­hind Oh Nine Ten­nis and Oh Nine Pub­lic Re­la­tions Agency (Oh Nine PR), a firm she found­ed to sup­port bud­ding so­ca, hip-hop and reg­gae artistes.

Be­yond her pro­fes­sion­al pur­suits, she em­braces the great out­doors, lead­ing friends on ex­hil­a­rat­ing hikes, cham­pi­oning a healthy lifestyle, and find­ing in­spi­ra­tion in the beau­ty of na­ture.

Ar­joon said her love sto­ry with ten­nis start­ed by chance when she and her moth­er, An­isha Ar­joon, stum­bled up­on a ten­nis class while dri­ving through Fyz­abad.

“We saw a coach with a group of chil­dren do­ing ten­nis. My mom im­me­di­ate­ly got the in­for­ma­tion and I start­ed short­ly af­ter,” she re­called.

De­spite hav­ing nev­er played be­fore, Ar­joon was hooked from the first les­son.

“I had played many dif­fer­ent sports, but some­thing about ten­nis just fit­ted well with me, it makes me, me,” Ar­joon said.

As she worked to­wards play­ing at the na­tion­al lev­el a dev­as­tat­ing shoul­der in­jury forced her out of the game for five years. Her mot­to-“Be the coach that I need­ed.”

To make mat­ters worse, Ar­joon re­vealed in 2022 she suf­fered a her­ni­at­ed disc which got worse by 2024.

By that time she had al­ready de­cid­ed to tran­si­tion from play­er to coach hav­ing pur­sued and com­plet­ed the In­ter­na­tion­al Ten­nis Fed­er­a­tion Lev­el One Coach­ing course in 2021. Ar­joon said coach­ing brought a ful­fill­ing twist.

“When I start­ed coach­ing and help­ing the kids to build con­fi­dence and re­silience, I re­alised how much I loved teach­ing chil­dren. I love see­ing them have fun on the court while im­prov­ing their game each class,” she said.

Ar­joon said one of her proud­est mo­ments came from see­ing one of her youngest stu­dents, eight-year-old Michael Balvin, earn the run­ner-up spot in two tour­na­ments.

“His com­pet­i­tive spir­it and pas­sion dri­ve me to keep go­ing. This year, the rest of my stu­dents will be­gin com­pet­ing, and I know it’s go­ing to be great,” she added.

A Sec­ond Pas­sion: Pro­mot­ing Lo­cal Tal­ent

How­ev­er, Ar­joon’s ded­i­ca­tion to up­lift­ing oth­ers isn’t lim­it­ed to the ten­nis court but al­so to the Car­ni­val stage through her com­pa­ny Oh Nine Pub­lic Re­la­tions Agency (Oh Nine PR) which she found­ed in 2017.

“One of my best friends, singer and song­writer Mr Ren­zo (Lawrence Adams) ad­vised me to be­come a pub­li­cist af­ter I did a cou­ple of write-ups for his Latin so­ca re­leas­es,” she re­called.

With the guid­ance of in­dus­try pro­fes­sion­als like Mar­cus Brave­boy and Lawrence Adams, she built her com­pa­ny from scratch.

“It took a sup­port­ive team to push me to start it. Isaac Rud­der gave me the busi­ness name, and Stu­art Sil­va de­signed the lo­go. I won’t be where I am with­out them.”

Over the years, she has worked with more than 20 artistes, in­clud­ing Dev, Mr Ren­zo, Umi Mar­cano, and the late Ri­car­do Drue.

“Work­ing with Ri­car­do Drue was a dream come true, that’s all I got to say about that. I be­lieve those words speak vol­umes.”

De­spite the chal­lenges, Ar­joon re­mains com­mit­ted to her mis­sion. “I love lo­cal mu­sic, and I’ve seen so many young tal­ents who don’t al­ways get the shine they de­serve. That’s what in­spired me the most to start Oh Nine PR.”

She said jug­gling both coach­ing and PR was no easy task, but for Ar­joon, it’s a labour of love as she works part-time with the Ten­nis As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T dur­ing ma­jor cham­pi­onships.

She said al­though her jour­ney has been filled with tri­als, she re­mains stead­fast in her de­ter­mi­na­tion to in­spire oth­ers as she or­gan­is­es week­end hikes to some of her favourite na­ture trails.

Her ad­vice to oth­ers? “Don’t just sit around and wait for things to hap­pen, you got to make it hap­pen. It might be tough, but it’s al­ways worth it.”

Check out Ar­joon at In­sta­gram @oh_nine_pr and @ohnineten­nis;-Face­book at Oh Nine PR and Oh Nine Ten­nis or by email: oh­nine_pr@out­look.com or ohnineten­nis@out­look.com.