Who is benefitting from the ATP Challengers in India?
The Hindu
Indian tennis struggles with lack of coaching, scheduling issues, and foreign dominance in ATP, WTA, and ITF tournaments.
In an otherwise dismal tennis scene in India, one positive in recent years has been the conduct of a handful of ATP, WTA and ITF tournaments. Three States – Maharashtra, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu – have put their best foot forward to help Indian players gain crucial points and move up the rankings.
The results, however, paint a different picture. There has only been one Indian singles winner in 12 Challengers from 2019 – Sumit Nagal in Chennai last year. In the first of four back-to-back Challengers that gets underway in Chennai from Monday, not a single Indian is ranked high enough to gain a direct main draw entry.
World No. 105 Nagal, who breached the top-100 after winning in Chennai, is not playing any of the four competitions and has chosen his beloved clay in South America. Sasikumar Mukund (395), Ramkumar Ramanathan (400) and Karan Singh (500) all had to be given wildcards.
“The level of coaching is not good enough,” Prajnesh Gunneswaran, who achieved a career-best ranking of 75, told The Hindu. “I won’t blame the talent or the potential. Gopi Chand and Rahul Dravid are coaching. It’s not that they didn’t do well as players and make money. But they have come back. Where is the tennis player of that calibre coaching in India?
“Or hire foreigners, but they will ask thrice the salary, which is basically throwing money at the problem like China. You can hold 50 tournaments, but if your players are not good enough, nobody will win.”
Former India Davis Cup coach Zeeshan Ali felt that scheduling has played a part. “Having three or four tournaments in a row attracts a lot of high-ranked foreigners,” he said. “It is cost effective for them and they take away a lot of entries.”
“It is better to space tournaments out. Maybe have two, give two or three weeks off. Have a couple in hot June instead of pleasant February. You won’t have a lot of Americans and Europeans coming.”
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Indian tennis struggles with lack of coaching, scheduling issues, and foreign dominance in ATP, WTA, and ITF tournaments.
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