Indian tennis legend Ramesh Krishnan on Tuesday said he believes tennis has a strong presence in major cities of the country, even when compared to cricket, but needs to spread to smaller towns in order to grow and find talent for the future. “Tennis is played in major cities such as Delhi, Mumbai, Calcutta, Bangalore and Chennai but taking it to smaller centres is important for Indian tennis to grow. It is not that tennis is lagging behind but many other sports growing too so some players are going into them. The way cricket has gone to the likes of Ranchi is something tennis needs to learn from,” he said.
In the capital for the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between French Tennis Federation (FFT) and All India Tennis Association (AITA) where junior players (U-18) would compete for a wild card entry into the juniors draw of the 2015 French Open. Top ranked 16 Indian players from both boys and girls categories will compete for the spot to play on the Parisian red clay.
A similar scheme called ‘Road to Wimbledon’ exists for the grass court event aimed at U-14 players. The only Indian to win a juniour title at Roland Garros, in 1979, Krishnan lamented the lack of clay courts in the country despite Indian conditions being favourable to the surface. “We don’t have enough clay courts. The shift has been too much towards hard courts. I would like to see more clay courts and for Indian conditions, clay is more suitable.
“So I hope with this association, we will get more clay courts and expertise in building and maintaining clay courts,” he added. When asked about the current crop of Indian players, Krishnan mentioned Somdev Devvarman and Yuki Bhambri but pointed that more players need to make that extra push to get into the Top 100. “Somdev was coming along very nicely until he had the shoulder injury from which I don’t think he’s recovered fully. That is a bit unfortunate. “Yuki has also had a few good wins, so it is a question of enough people pushing and someone will take it higher and higher,” he said .
As for the women’s side and Sania Mirza in particular who won the women’s doubles title at Indian Wells with Martina Hingis, Krishnan said she’s doing well.
“last year, Sania had a great year and even a couple of weeks ago in California, she won a good tournament. So she seems to be maintaining her form,” he concluded.
