Now this debutant was playing like a snarling young boxer who's just tasted blood. If as Christopher Martin-Jenkins once wrote, character is having 'the fibre for a fight', then Vishal Uppal has it. He is therefore a freak, an oddity. He is also going to go to waste. The test of talent is to improve.
Mediocrity is defined when players plateau, unable to go further.
Good players always have the under rung of the ladder to climb. Realising that potential requires dedication, hours of sweat on the court, self-belief. It also requires a top class coach, a man able to see flaws, to identify where technique requires correction, to motivate his charge to keep climbing higher. Vishal Uppal needs such a coach. He doesn't have one.