PKBasu wrote:although Federer's success probably paved the way for Wawrinka to some degree
But, this can't be the case since Stan is just 4 years younger to Roger and would have already finished his junior years by the time Roger won his first slam....
If the next generation of swiss kids come through, then we can say that the impact of Roger and Stan was probably there...
PKBasu wrote:although Federer's success probably paved the way for Wawrinka to some degree
But, this can't be the case since Stan is just 4 years younger to Roger and would have already finished his junior years by the time Roger won his first slam....
If the next generation of swiss kids come through, then we can say that the impact of Roger and Stan was probably there...
But seeing Federer winning so many times would have definitely instilled the belief in Stan that he can do it too. But that's obviously after Wawrinka was in the top 20 himself.
Agree with Arjun that if at all a top 10 player comes up among Indians, it is more likely to be a freak talent rather then a case of organised effort from organisation/coaches. A case in point is Sania Mirza on womens side who became a top 30 player and was in top 50 for quite some time. There was none from womens side from India who had come anywhere close to those standards ( or even top 100 level) before Sania and no one has done it now 5 years after she stopped playing singles.
At least on mens side we have some history. So, will have to wait for such freak talent to occur. In the meantime from the present lost ( particularly Yuki, RamK, Sumit) , I still harbour hopes of top 50. It will be a minor miracle if they make it to top 20 at some point in their career.
Of course, having greater depth will increase the possibility of someone coming along to hit top 20.
Good arguments but I don't think our system would allow for a freak talent to surface (to the top). If we look at our players who have surfaced up, then I see players with lots of sponsorship (Sania, Ramkumar), family with a sports background (Harsh, Leander), with deep pockets (Jeevan), players who hone their skills abroad mostly (Somdev, Sanam) etc. Even with all that support, we don't see anyone in the top 10.
We don't have a system that can produce top players. The TN's model should be the national model. Then we can see lot more Ramkumars and then hope for one of those to come to the top. If we want to see a player in the top 10, I don't see that happening ever with what we have.
Well, I'm hoping for top-30 level players as achievable as we've had a few players including Vijay and Ramesh reach that level. Of course, Ramanathan Krishnan was the only one that made the top-10. In all of those cases, they were driven by talent and family initiative rather than the Indian system. Some of our more recent successes are coming up through the system (RamK, Sania etc.) and Yuki and co. have the opportunity to get to top-50 levels if they put in the right kind of hard work which is really in their control. Perhaps, Yuki had top-10 talent but he's fallen behind now and it will be really hard for him to reach those lofty levels.
I am not sure if Yuki had top 10 talent although he was junior world no. 1 at one point . To get an indication, I just went thru the players he has beaten in juniors to see where they are now. The best ones he had beaten were Dzumhur (high of #81 in ATP) and Sock ( high of #27 ATP) , many others who have made it to between ATP 100 and 200. A few others who he was close to ( but never beat them) were Tomic (high of 20), Harrison (high of 43) and Krajinovic ( high of 86).
So, I guess he always had top 50 potential and he would still have a chance to reach there. I will be really happy if he can hit top 30 at some point of time like Sock.
So what is our goal?
1) Is it to have one top 10 singles player (men or women)? (only singles, not doubles or mixed doubles)
2) Be considered a Tennis nation?
For either of these to happen, we need a system . A system to identify talent, support players with finances, travel expenses, and coaching. With advancements in areas of sports science/injury prevention, technology, nutrition etc, even top 30 may not be possible anymore if we don't keep up. We can still maybe see a player reach top 30 (if they have this so called "freak talent" but it's going to be tough to stay there (Sania is an example)).
Something else bugs me quite a bit. What is the role of AITA? Just to organize tournaments? How about player development? Sunil Yajaman played a very important role in junior player development when he was the head of that division. Have we seen any players come up after he left (without support)? Ramkumar has support and Sumit has support.
Honestly, some of our players (Sania, Mahesh, Rohan, Vishnu, Jeevan to name a few) may not even be the best atheletes from our country. If we spot the right talent and nuture them, we can hope for better players. Yuki is so much better than Jack Sock but Jack is able to reach top 30 because of all the support that he has.
sameerph wrote:I am not sure if Yuki had top 10 talent although he was junior world no. 1 at one point . To get an indication, I just went thru the players he has beaten in juniors to see where they are now. The best ones he had beaten were Dzumhur (high of #81 in ATP) and Sock ( high of #27 ATP) , many others who have made it to between ATP 100 and 200. A few others who he was close to ( but never beat them) were Tomic (high of 20), Harrison (high of 43) and Krajinovic ( high of 86).
So, I guess he always had top 50 potential and he would still have a chance to reach there. I will be really happy if he can hit top 30 at some point of time like Sock.
Yes, perhaps Yuki had a relatively weak junior cohort as none of them have reached top levels although Tomic is close. Yuki ended 2008 junior rankings as the #2 when he was 16. Tomic was #3 in that year. Nobody else in the year end junior boys rankings from 2004-2014 have been as high as #2 or #3 while they were 16. So Yuki's junior career at the age of 16 was pretty special (and he didn't play much juniors at age 17 and 18) although he hasn't translated that potential to achievement as yet.
There was a a mention of TN model.Since I have been witness to that in the recent past thought i could chip in. The relative success (not a success in the global perspective) of TN model is more to do with the coaches here than about stepping in to support an already winning horse. TN coaches are disciplined, here for the long haul, not money hungry, focus on personality development apart from tennis etc. Each tennis center has its own unique brand of tennis in Chennai like in a couple of centers the coaches don't believe in double handed BH, some do not over work the kids by having double sessions till they are 14 etc. But the coaches are not able to take their centers to the next level due to want of funds.
Elsewhere in the country coaches make parents and students gamble with their life savings and end up demoralising the entire family by the time the kid is 16. Thats why the moderation TN system (read as TN coaches psyche) exhibits to downplay junior circuits and focus on full time travel for tennis around 18 if your still around, is a sensible one. This maturity of TN system probably comes from a string of old timers who have played tennis at the highest level and know the success/failure at U14 does not mean much.
A better model for associations would be to broad base the support. We will always be able to find a sponsor for a boy who wins Nationals at the age of 15, but the focus should be to widen the net by supporting these coaches. The administrators can coordinate between schools and corporates to lay hard courts (only a handful centers have syn courts in Chennai), use funds to appoint coaches on its rolls in these schools, make them accountable, foster interactions between them, have a central program to get the cream to play and travel together etc. Local tournaments should be made more meaningful and competitive so the time and money wasted for travel is reduced. Ofcourse this model will not provide instant success to boast off, but will make us into a "Tennis nation" in a decade. I wish for starters, TN does this.
Yes Ram, agree with Suresh. Thanks for your insightful post. It's not very different here in the US (lots of coaches and academies are money making machines). There is no consistency in the teaching methods. Most clubs (at least in the North East) have coaches as independent contractors, so the goal is just to ensure their quota is met. Most parents get carried away and spends loads of money on training/private lessons. One prime example is the JMTA (John McEnroe's academy). That place is a factory. The enrollment shot up (and they opened another center recently) after Noah Rubin won the junior Wimbledon.
But the USTA has been doing some good things lately. I posted a webinar in one of the other threads a couple of days ago. Watch it if you have time (it's 1,5 hours). It is a presentation on the pathway for the US junior players. The results have also been quite encouraging lately - most of the junior grand slams were won by US players this year (Tommy Paul, Taylor Fritz, Reilly Opelka, Noah Rubin) and there seems to be a good pipeline of players (on the men's and women's side).
I am however encouraged by what I read in your post (re: TN). I just hope we have a model at the national level. The goal should be to get more people to play (at the base), make it more affordable because there is loads of talent in India, I think. Also need accountability (how do we define success?, what metrics to track over time etc?)
Thanks Suresh and Gbel ,(sorry I did not get the name)
The TN model also needs to be more coordinated as I mentioned in the 3rd para. There was a swedish coach who visited us 3-4 years back who was mentioning about a "support the coach" model being done in Russia. Even in TN I heard there is an extreme version of Govt supporting a single player through the Coach. Accountability of the coach is based on that players performance. (I heard TT Coach Raman and Sathiyan have this arrangement with the Govt ).
Though I welcome the overall concept , its "extreme" because it talks about just one player. We could get to this after we have laid down the infrastructure to net the talented ones in a broad based concept as Phase 1. Phase 2 can be such support of the cream. But still TN Govt should be lauded for this and I hope they have checks and balances in place to ensure its not misused.
And the good news is that four of them have shown that they can play at the challenger level. RamK needs a bit of work to get there. I would like to think that both RamK (and VSP) will achieve that next year.