looking back at India’s unsuccessful campaign to enter the World Group in Davis Cup, former India tennis captain Vijay Amritraj on Wednesday said it was crucial for the singles players to break into the top 100 of rankings.
“For us to get into the World Group it’s absolutely critical to have players in the top 100. Otherwise it’s hard to push through in four singles matches,” said Amritraj when asked about India’s 1-3 defeat against top seeds Czech Republic in Delhi last week in the World Group play-off tie.
“If you have players in the top 100, preferably in the top 50, then we can push these guys and on a particular day you could actually win. Otherwise it becomes rather difficult,” he said.
Amritraj said the important thing was to find a lot many players to push at each other and burst on to the world scene like some European countries’ players.
“If you look at our tennis as a whole it’s critical to have dozens of players coming through at a younger age. You can’t always have one person coming up every ten years. It’s important to have that push at a younger age in bunches, like the French, Spaniards and Swedes..”
Amritraj also had good words on Sani Mairza’s latest achievements. “For me what is so wonderful is when our sports gets on the front pages. Sania has put our sport on the front pages and that’s what is important, not just for girls’ tennis, for tennis across the board, sports across the board especially for girls,” Amritraj told reporters here.