Indian tennis has languished in the doldrums for decades. Each generation has seen a champion emerge, despite an almost non-existent system – thanks in the main to the incompetence of the All India Tennis Association (AITA).
From the Krishnans, Ramanathan and Ramesh, his son, to the Amritraj brothers, Vijay and Anand, players shone. None of this was due to a robust tennis infrastructure but sheer individual brilliance.
Players over the past four or five decades have complained of no support from the federation and zero coaching systems. If there was a national tennis academy, it was far from professionally run. The coaches there were not conversant with modern tennis.
Till Gatorade came along to bail him out, Sumit Nagal, India’s present-day singles warrior, was almost broke. During the Asian Games in Hangzhou, Nagal got support from Gatorade, almost like drops of water for a man dying of thirst.
One person who has seen the Indian tennis system, or the absence of it, up close is Sania Mirza. She spoke to RevSportz about what ails this racquet sport in India. Sania herself runs an academy in Hyderabad, but then, the need is for professionalism from the administrators. Excerpts:
RevSportz: Sania, you retired this year. Rohan Bopanna is the lone soldier fighting for India on the international circuit. Does it worry you that Indian tennis has no depth at all?
Sania Mirza: Yes, it is disappointing that, as a country, we have not been able to make our potentially talented youngsters successfully transition to the highest level of the sport. I would have imagined that the two decades that I spent playing at the top level and the exploits of Leander Paes, Mahesh Bhupathi – who broke onto the scene almost a decade before me – and, of course, Rohan Bopanna would have inspired more Indian players to break barriers at the Grand Slam level.
RevSportz: Fans kept asking where the next Sania will come from. None in sight. What needs to be done to produce a good singles player in the men’s and women’s sections?
Sania: We lack a good system to produce players who can perform at the highest level of tennis. Tennis is a truly global sport which is played all across the globe, and if we are going to depend on one or two families from our vast country to bring glory to the nation in this global sport, then success is going to be rare and far between. There is a lot that needs to be done to achieve international success and there are no shortcuts.
RevSportz: Sumit Nagal has worked hard in 2023 to get back into the top 145. Is India a nation of just tennis-doubles specialists, for there is no other singles star?
Sania: The primary goal has to be to break into the Top 100 of the world because then you get to play the Grand Slams and also support yourself financially. I believe that our skills are more suited for playing doubles in a physical sport like tennis, but that does not mean that we cannot defy those odds and succeed in singles as well. I was 27 in the world, and Ramesh Krishnan (23) and Vijay Amritraj (17) were the other top-30 singles players from India. We all made it with the massive support and acquired knowledge of our respective families. I come back to my earlier observation that we need proper planning, with inputs from those of us who have played at that level, and then a proper system needs to evolve if we are to produce singles players competing at the Grand Slam level.
RevSportz: What is your blueprint for Indian tennis? This is the only racket sport at home where the lack of depth is distressing. Zeeshan Ali has said the future looks bleak.
Sania: One of the reasons why tennis lacks depth in India is that it is a truly global and fiercely competitive sport, in which more than 200 countries vie for top honours. You can be No. 1 in your own country and still rank around 200 in the world. There is a reason why the prize money is high in tennis compared to other sports. So many people want to play and watch tennis and so many more want to play and perform at the top level in this sport compared to a lot of other regional sports. Unless we professionally formulate a proper system and guide the next generation of players, we are not going to produce champions.
RevSportz: Your thoughts on Bopanna still soldiering on at 43? He calls it Level 43!
Sania: It’s amazing that Rohan is playing at the top of his game at 43. He looks good for at least another three to four years and I am very happy for him.