We need to host more international tournaments to produce quality tennis players, says Uppal
Former Davis Cupper and Asian Games bronze medallist Vishal Uppal feels the need of hour for India is to host more international tennis tournaments to produce top-100 players from the country.
“If we look at other countries, they host 45-50 international tournaments a year to support their players. We do what, 10-12 maybe? So, the players are asking, where’s the support? Why do we not have enough opportunities in this country,” Uppal told PTI at his academy here on Friday.
“Again, please understand, the majority of players currently pursuing professional tennis are not from wealthy families. They lack the means to travel for 25-30 tournaments abroad. Now, unless we bring those opportunities to a wider pool of players, how will we help the raw talent to emerge? The people with the means don’t have the hunger and the people with the hunger don’t have the means,” he lamented.
He urged former players to help in bringing more international tournaments to India.
“What is stopping all the former players from getting together. If somebody hosts two international tournaments in their city, someone else does two in theirs, you can do 10 or 15 tournaments like that. So you just take AITA’s help to get those tournaments sanctioned, then you do it. I’ve hosted 10 women’s world ranking events at this venue where we’re sitting,” Uppal said. “We need a lot of support.
We all need to come together. We all need to sit together, brainstorm, and figure out how we can act collectively as a community to grow the sport in this country.”
Uppal said talent identification and corporate support are must to grow the sport in the country.
“We’ve got to identify better talent for tennis. Tennis is a game of speed. Somdev (Devvarman) got to top 75 in the world. Speed was his biggest factor. If you look at Leander (Paes), incredible speed. So, we need to identify talent. We need to educate the people of this country on how they can support tennis as a sport.
“Everybody wants to blame either the federation or the government for lack of support. Why can’t more corporates come together and support Indian tennis? It is an Olympic sport. It’s a sport that has traditionally done well for India,” he said.
