The decline of Indian tennis from pre-eminence to its lowest ebb

A sport once so integral to the nation’s psyche is staring at an existential crisis. How did it come to this?

In the last two years, Sumit Nagal has been central to all three stories in Indian men’s tennis that has got the fans most excited. On his Grand Slam debut at the 2019 US Open, he took a set off Roger Federer and became the toast of the nation.

A year later in New York, he became the first Indian in seven years (since Somdev Devvarman at the 2013 US Open) to win a singles match at a Major. At the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, he became the first Indian in 25 years (since Leander Paes at Atlanta 1996) to win a singles match at the quadrennial extravaganza.

What Nagal managed was indeed praiseworthy. But how did a sport so integral to the Indian psyche a few decades ago, which produced Grand Slam singles semifinalists, had players in the top-20s and 30s and reached the Davis Cup finals thrice reduce itself to exulting after routine, run-of-the-mill successes?