Is Indian Tennis Scene ever going to pick up?

[surajmal]

Why do Indians suck at Tennis so much? Discuss. 

[Gollum]

6 hours ago, surajmal said:

Why do Indians suck at Tennis so much? Discuss. 

1. Very rich sport, our best talent is from middle class and lower strata eg adivasis. Both these groups are either into no sport or cricket/hockey/badminton/football/archery etc. Tennis hasn't caught the eye of an average Indian, even in richer countries it is seen as an elite sport but still we are way behind. 

 

2. Unnecessary hype of doubles: Singles is the real deal but when you place the doubles players at such a high pedestal youngsters will have low benchmark, they will take the easy way out. From Ramanathan Krishnan and Vijay Amritraj we have fallen to following doubles specialists (failed singles players will be a better way to describe them) who are ridiculously over rated and over pampered.

 

3. Genes. During 60s-80s it had finesse, now more power, stamina, endurance needed...also the competition is too much these days with the resurgence of European powers. Not just India, look at the East Asian countries, even they are struggling to produce tennis champions in spite of such excellent infrastructure and focus on sports. A few days back Shenzhen signed a 1 billion US$ deal to host WTA YEC for 10 years. Look at the HC swing after SW 19, so many tournaments in East Asia, still very few decent players from that region...cost benefit ratio bakwaas hai. Just like football, tennis will continue to be dominated by Europe, Americas and Australia

 

4. Like in all sports, we have poor sporting infrastructure and coaches in India. Not all can afford to shift base to USA/Europe to get better facilities. Also a poor sporting culture, tbh we suck at almost all sports. 

Edited January 18, 2018 by Gollum

[Muloghonto]

the biggest problem in India for tennis, is lack of tennis courts in the cities. The sport itself is not very expensive - it costs less to play tennis than cricket IMO (real ball cricket) but you need courts to play tennis....cant just go whack a ball in the streets and be a tennis player.

 

[Cricketics]

 

On 1/19/2018 at 8:41 PM, Muloghonto said:

the biggest problem in India for tennis, is lack of tennis courts in the cities. The sport itself is not very expensive - it costs less to play tennis than cricket IMO (real ball cricket) but you need courts to play tennis....cant just go whack a ball in the streets and be a tennis player.

 

Its picking up, we have youngsters coming up and there is more news now than before. Of course we aren’t there yet like any european natioan and are often happy to see few more doubles team in the main draw but that I think will change with time.

 

 

Our biggest problem is lack of funding to players and also lack of Challenger and futures tournament taking place in India where our Indians can participate and gain points. 

 

 

However recently Maharashtra hosted world class challenger tournament plus ATP 250 tournaments and the 250 even attracted top players like Cilic and Anderson. There is hope. 

 

 

Sumit Nagal is our future and I expect big thing s from Yuki Bhambri still. One grandslam Quarter final and I am tellinf you, Tennis scene in India will change. Sumit Nagal is the future. We need to shower all the funding on him, along with also showing support and funding for Karman Thandi Kaur who can be a top women tennis player in the future.

 

 

 

[Gollum]

5 hours ago, Cricketics said:

 

Its picking up, we have youngsters coming up and there is more news now than before. Of course we aren’t there yet like any european natioan and are often happy to see few more doubles team in the main draw but that I think will change with time.

 

 

Our biggest problem is lack of funding to players and also lack of Challenger and futures tournament taking place in India where our Indians can participate and gain points. 

 

 

However recently Maharashtra hosted world class challenger tournament plus ATP 250 tournaments and the 250 even attracted top players like Cilic and Anderson. There is hope. 

 

 

Sumit Nagal is our future and I expect big thing s from Yuki Bhambri still. One grandslam Quarter final and I am tellinf you, Tennis scene in India will change. Sumit Nagal is the future. We need to shower all the funding on him, along with also showing support and funding for Karman Thandi Kaur who can be a top women tennis player in the future.

 

 

 

What makes you think having more tournaments in India will help us more than it helped China? China has dozens of tournaments, including some big ones in the 2nd half of the year, their govt spends billions to improve their tennis, their infrastructure and sports funding is a few decades ahead of us, they have a better sporting culture, yet they haven't exactly set the world stage on fire. Yuki Bhanmri, Sumit Nagal, Ramkumar are talented hard working chaps but tbh if Krishnan and Vijay Amritraj couldn't bring a change in our tennis scene what hope do these guys (who are so much inferior to the former 2) have? I pin the blame of our singles decline on the moronic overhyping of doubles success. In my mind Mirza's greatest achievements were her R3/R4 runs in majors as a singles player, but media/public is over the moon with her doubles triumphs.

 

Ramanathan Krishnan was world no 6 in the 60s, a few SFs and QFs in majors with wins over Rod Laver, Newcombe, Roche, Emerson, Santana etc. Vijay was top 20 for close to a decade with even a better win (and in a few cases positive H2H) list: Laver, Newcombe, Emerson, Bjorg, Connors, McEnroe, Nastase etc. But for an average Indian tennis fan, Indian tennis started with Paes Bhupathi doubles .

[Cricketics]

8 hours ago, Gollum said:

What makes you think having more tournaments in India will help us more than it helped China? China has dozens of tournaments, including some big ones in the 2nd half of the year, their govt spends billions to improve their tennis, their infrastructure and sports funding is a few decades ahead of us, they have a better sporting culture, yet they haven't exactly set the world stage on fire. Yuki Bhanmri, Sumit Nagal, Ramkumar are talented hard working chaps but tbh if Krishnan and Vijay Amritraj couldn't bring a change in our tennis scene what hope do these guys (who are so much inferior to the former 2) have? I pin the blame of our singles decline on the moronic overhyping of doubles success. In my mind Mirza's greatest achievements were her R3/R4 runs in majors as a singles player, but media/public is over the moon with her doubles 

With home challengers and futures, players with in India get to be part of tournaments and do. Ot have to think twice of participating u like when tournament isnoverseas and they have to pay for everything such as visa, hotel, dlight cost etc.

 

Travelling within India is very cheap and organized can easily arrange for a room, unlike challenger tournaments overseas. Also players are able to earn some “cheap” points or young players can get “wildcard” into futures and challengers and face top players at young age to gain experience. This is our only option. Imagine how much people from Aus, Uk and US gain when their young players get wildcard into grandslams being the host nation. 

 

Tennis is all about giving young players wiled card as it leaves major impact on their young career. 

[Gollum]

11 minutes ago, Cricketics said:

With home challengers and futures, players with in India get to be part of tournaments and do. Ot have to think twice of participating u like when tournament isnoverseas and they have to pay for everything such as visa, hotel, dlight cost etc.

 

Travelling within India is very cheap and organized can easily arrange for a room, unlike challenger tournaments overseas. Also players are able to earn some “cheap” points or young players can get “wildcard” into futures and challengers and face top players at young age to gain experience. This is our only option. Imagine how much people from Aus, Uk and US gain when their young players get wildcard into grandslams being the host nation. 

 

Tennis is all about giving young players wiled card as it leaves major impact on their young career. 

All that is fine but where do you think China erred? If we are able to crack that we can make suitable adjustments and take some serious strides in developing our tennis talent in the coming years. 

[Cricketics]

5 minutes ago, Gollum said:

All that is fine but where do you think China erred? If we are able to crack that we can make suitable adjustments and take some serious strides in developing our tennis talent in the coming years. 

Dude I am following Challenger and Futures level Tenis a lot in last 3-4 years and Chinese tennis is prospering at the lower levels in challengers. Now you can see many Chinese, Taiwanese players progressing theough the challenger stages and reaching ATP events.

 

There might not be many Chinese players in top 20 but there are many in top 500 who are progressing already.

 

I think recent Maharashtra open being transformed after poor run of Chennai Open is the best thing to have happened.

 

India will also now be hosting challengers I think in Mumbai for both men and women so those are great signs.

 

 

[Gollum]

47 minutes ago, Cricketics said:

Dude I am following Challenger and Futures level Tenis a lot in last 3-4 years and Chinese tennis is prospering at the lower levels in challengers. Now you can see many Chinese, Taiwanese players progressing theough the challenger stages and reaching ATP events.

 

There might not be many Chinese players in top 20 but there are many in top 500 who are progressing already.

 

I think recent Maharashtra open being transformed after poor run of Chennai Open is the best thing to have happened.

 

India will also now be hosting challengers I think in Mumbai for both men and women so those are great signs.

 

 

Why was it poorly run, wasn't it better with the star quotient?

[Gollum]

BTW I think there is something lacking in our genes that prevents us from doing well in most sports. I know I am being controversial but I do believe genetics plays a huge role in intellectual and sporting pursuits, we were never blessed in the latter endeavor. @Muloghonto you are a very well read person, do you see a genetic influence on sports/athletics performance that hinders Indians from becoming world beaters?

Edited January 21, 2018 by Gollum

[Cricketics]

1 hour ago, Gollum said:

Why was it poorly run, wasn't it better with the star quotient?

No pathetic tournament, bot well organised. Poor crowd and not well commercialized, failed to attract big players regularly barring few. It also did not give wild card properly to Indian players. Along with it, the planning of the tournament was bad. Maharashtra Open ints first year promoted the tournment so well all over social media. 

[Gollum]

22 minutes ago, Cricketics said:

No pathetic tournament, bot well organised. Poor crowd and not well commercialized, failed to attract big players regularly barring few. It also did not give wild card properly to Indian players. Along with it, the planning of the tournament was bad. Maharashtra Open ints first year promoted the tournment so well all over social media. 

I occasionally lurk around a tennis forum and they were aghast at the move to Pune. They felt that Chennai's climate would be an ideal preparation for AO. I did follow the Chennai Open earlier when I was a boy, my favourite event of the year back then. I would always support Paradorn Srichapan but he would lose to Carlos Moya in the final. I recall peak Nadal, Ljubicic, Wawrinka, Cilic playing in its later editions. Checked this year's draw on wiki just now and boy the player list is worse than Chennai, no wonder I missed this one on TV. I think in Chennai Vijay Amritraj was pulling the strings and he has connections with top players, did he play a role in Pune? Obviously you can't compare a Pune with a Chennai in terms of tennis history but you need better players to sell an event. Regarding wild card I don't know but having a glance through the draws can't see any difference tbh, all your points (big players, crowd, pathetic tournament, wild card, planning) look superficial and devoid of facts/evidence. 

Edited January 21, 2018 by Gollum

[kumar713]

On 1/18/2018 at 9:23 PM, Gollum said:

1. Very rich sport, our best talent is from middle class and lower strata eg adivasis. Both these groups are either into no sport or cricket/hockey/badminton/football/archery etc. Tennis hasn't caught the eye of an average Indian, even in richer countries it is seen as an elite sport but still we are way behind. 

 

2. Unnecessary hype of doubles: Singles is the real deal but when you place the doubles players at such a high pedestal youngsters will have low benchmark, they will take the easy way out. From Ramanathan Krishnan and Vijay Amritraj we have fallen to following doubles specialists (failed singles players will be a better way to describe them) who are ridiculously over rated and over pampered.

 

3. Genes. During 60s-80s it had finesse, now more power, stamina, endurance needed...also the competition is too much these days with the resurgence of European powers. Not just India, look at the East Asian countries, even they are struggling to produce tennis champions in spite of such excellent infrastructure and focus on sports. A few days back Shenzhen signed a 1 billion US$ deal to host WTA YEC for 10 years. Look at the HC swing after SW 19, so many tournaments in East Asia, still very few decent players from that region...cost benefit ratio bakwaas hai. Just like football, tennis will continue to be dominated by Europe, Americas and Australia

 

4. Like in all sports, we have poor sporting infrastructure and coaches in India. Not all can afford to shift base to USA/Europe to get better facilities. Also a poor sporting culture, tbh we suck at almost all sports. 

Good Post  

[Gollum]

11 minutes ago, kumar713 said:

Good Post  

Djokovic lost . 

[kumar713]

More than the loss, his injury is what worries me.

 

[youngindia]

Strategically Incompetent administrators.

 

First decent coaches have to be available in good numbers at grass roots level and matched by decent facilities.Decently coached candidates have to compete in strong leagues and tournaments.More people will take up this career if they are convinced their return on investment is reasonable.

 

Without a proven track record of good coaching and previous champions, i doubt critical mass will be attained in terms of a tennis career. or the parents will support them in too risky and uncertain a path. 

 

Only when a choice of a tennis career becomes critical mass and  people take it up in huge numbers, the probability of a few tennis champions becomes realistic . Right now its bits and pieces. No momnetum is there 

 

Its no rocket science focus on the big cities and the private schools first.

 

when we have  have only crorepatis and criminals ruling the roost, what do you expect. They have to be shunted out first,. 

[youngindia]

On 1/21/2018 at 7:15 AM, Cricketics said:

 

Its picking up, we have youngsters coming up and there is more news now than before. Of course we aren’t there yet like any european natioan and are often happy to see few more doubles team in the main draw but that I think will change with time.

 

 

Our biggest problem is lack of funding to players and also lack of Challenger and futures tournament taking place in India where our Indians can participate and gain points. 

 

 

However recently Maharashtra hosted world class challenger tournament plus ATP 250 tournaments and the 250 even attracted top players like Cilic and Anderson. There is hope. 

 

 

Sumit Nagal is our future and I expect big thing s from Yuki Bhambri still. One grandslam Quarter final and I am tellinf you, Tennis scene in India will change. Sumit Nagal is the future. We need to shower all the funding on him, along with also showing support and funding for Karman Thandi Kaur who can be a top women tennis player in the future.

 

 

 

Sumit does not have a good height. His model is Ferrer type hustling. That means more limitations in tennis.

 

Ramkumar with his serve and forehand is more promising in my eyes,. But his backhand is such a liability currently.

 

Karman kaur has it all. but i am not happy with her progress.She should be doing more with her gifts.

Again her backhand is the issue.

 

Maybe her tennis iq and strategy has  to improve. I hope she is not like rohit and ishant

Edited January 28, 2018 by youngindia
edt

[I6MTW]

Bhambri had a good chance to take off at the slam which has historically favoured him(won juniors,reached main draw 3 times). This was his best draw and considering the condition of opponents in his draw he could've gone deep, won a few rounds. He faced  an old Bagdhatis who was ranked below him. That's the best first round opponent he could've gotten considering his past ones(berdych,Murray). But he was inconsequential. Had chances but didn't take them. He could've beaten old Baghdatis, young inexperienced rublev, an out of form dimitrov who nearly lost to macdonald a challenger level player. He couldve reached the 4th round(maybe even won against kyrgios if he had a mental/physical off day. This was the best chance for an Indian result at a GS. He blew it. You won't get opportunities like this often. You can't expect Indian tennis to take off this. 

[maniac]

In the USA, if you want to play tennis even just casually, you can walk up to any high school  after hours and start using their tennis courts...some courts have floodlights etc too and it is open for the public because obviously your tax money goes into building them.

 

I don’t know about now  but as a kid growing up in India, the only 2-3 times I  got to play tennis on an actual tennis court was  when a friend of mine  who was a filthy rich guy got us into the MSTLA a couple of times. Obviously he was the only guy who had a tennis racquets and rest all the racquets were jugaad

 

me and some other friends who went that day took some tennis balls we found ,home so that we can use them for cricket

 

The other time was through another close friend of mine who was a junior national level ranked player who quit pursuing the game by then.

 

Unless you find yourself in such exclusive  scenarios,it is very difficult to get access to tennis courts in India atleast during my time. 

 

On the other hand if you want to play cricket, millions of grounds available, plenty of coaches available etc etc

[Cricketics]

On 2/11/2018 at 4:07 PM, maniac said:

In the USA, if you want to play tennis even just casually, you can walk up to any high school  after hours and start using their tennis courts...some courts have floodlights etc too and it is open for the public because obviously your tax money goes into building them.

 

I don’t know about now  but as a kid growing up in India, the only 2-3 times I  got to play tennis on an actual tennis court was  when a friend of mine  who was a filthy rich guy got us into the MSTLA a couple of times. Obviously he was the only guy who had a tennis racquets and rest all the racquets were jugaad

 

me and some other friends who went that day took some tennis balls we found ,home so that we can use them for cricket

 

The other time was through another close friend of mine who was a junior national level ranked player who quit pursuing the game by then.

 

Unless you find yourself in such exclusive  scenarios,it is very difficult to get access to tennis courts in India atleast during my time. 

 

On the other hand if you want to play cricket, millions of grounds available, plenty of coaches available etc etc

Yes, what you said was true when I lived in the 90s and I am sure might be still true. This is because we lack basic infrastructure not only for tennis but pretty much for every sport. That can be said for cricket also as most kids play tennis ball crixket as you can play that on streets since the grounds in India aren’t big enough for people to play hard ball/Leather/season ball as the houses are too close to the ground and because of fear of breaking the windows, people stick to tennis ball cricket. Comoared that to Baseball here where kids play on proper baseball fields. Just fo near your house and see you will have tons of baseball fields with proper diamon, marked crease with proper grass cut regularly even though the field might not be used regularly by anyone.

 

We lack basic infrastructure dor every sport in India. 

 

I remember Inhad to get a membership at this facility called “Chatrasal Stadium” to play tennis. And you know what you would get for that paid membership? Dirty arse Shytest version of clay courts you can ever imagine where you can easily injure yourself.