Can India produce a Grand Slam Champion within ten years?

[BSharma]

Mahesh Bhupathi was quoted by PTI stating, "I don't see a reason why we cannot have a Grand slam champion in another eight to 10 years. I think we always had the talent but just could not take it to the next level and get them to do well at the Grand slams," Bhupathi, who is in the capital for a talent hunt challenge, said on Sunday.

Sania Mirza is capable of winning a Slam title if she can get all the ducks in a row and Yuki is the only junior player who shows enough promise to get into the top 100 on the ATP Tour.  Somdev is very good, but I do not see him getting into the top 4 or 5 players.

Is Mahesh overly optimistic?  Is he simply trying to drum up business for his Academy?  Does he know of youngsters that I do not know of who are very talented?  Do any of you guys and gals know of Indian players who can win a Slam title within ten years? 

If India puts a comprehensive system in place to properly train the younger players and identify 8 to 10 year old talented players, it will take more than eight to ten years to produce a Grand Slam champion.  There is no proper system in place in India to produce a top 50 singles player and the only ones that India has produced were not products of the current system in place (e.g., father and son Krishnans, Vijay Amritraj, Sania Mirza).

Your comments, please. 

Bhupathi promises Grand slam champs in 10 yrs

[prasen9]

Does he talks about *singles*?  Otherwise, it is somewhat easier.

[BSharma]

Does he talks about *singles*?  Otherwise, it is somewhat easier.

I assumed that Mahesh is talking about singles because Leander and Mahesh are capable of winning doubles slam titles in the next year or two and Sania could win a women's and/or mixed doubles title in the next few years.

[gbelday]

I think 10 years is overly optimistic.  It probably goes hand in hand with economic growth.  We first have to become a sporting super power.  I am sure there are a lot of talent out there but unless they are willing to commit 100% of their time to the sport, I don't see a champion emerging. Next 20 years, probably yes!

[amr090]

i will settle for someone to even QUALIFY into a slam at some point in the next 2 years, much less win one.  i don't know what drugs mahesh is on but at least on the men's side, we are nowhere CLOSE to a grand slam champion. unless we get one of those rare diamonds that shows itself, i don't see any indian man winning a slam championship till maybe almsot exactly 10 years from now. 

On the women's side we essentially have Sania and that's it, there really arent even any mind blowing prospects who are younger.  Sania will need to drastically improve in order to begin to contend for a slam.

I don't know how Mahesh is overly optimistic unless he knows of a young indian federer somewhere in his tennis academy.

[kujo]

http://www.hindu.com/2007/12/24/stories ... 641800.htm

The Apollo Tyres Mission 2018, a challenge to spot a Grand Slam singles champion by 2018, will kick off with 15 kids, as against the originally planned four.

“We wanted to select 10 at one stage, but eventually were convinced to choose the best 15 from a pool of nearly 3000 kids from around the country,” said Mahesh Bhupathi, the brain behind the programme after the final selection at the DLTA Complex here on Sunday. Stating that every care had been taken to make the right choice, Mahesh said that the kids would train at the Tennis Village in Bangalore.

Of course Mahesh is touting the marketing line. More than that, he has to believe in the "mission 2018" and make others believe in it as well. Otherwise, why will Apollo tyres sponsor this program?

Much as I would love to see a system in place for India to be a sports power, we have to begin in small steps somewhere... I am simply optimistic about these things. you never know what the future holds...

cheers
-kujo

[amr090]

i too hope the same for things look pretty bleak right now...

[BSharma]

My reason for starting this thread was NOT to bad-mouth Mahesh for what he is doing for Indian tennis.  He deserves credit for doing something rather than nothing at this stage of his career. 

I was confused with his statement about producing a slam champion within ten years – a feat remotely possible if India can put a proper system in place, identify the talented players, remove politics from the grooming of players as future champions, and provide them with all the tools necessary to become world class players. 

When I look around at the countries that have produced some singles slam champions in the past twenty years or so, I can put them under the following categories:

1.  Large number of talented players with good sports infrastructure – USA, Australia, Sweden, Spain, Germany

2.  Large number of talented players with hunger to become world champions – Russia and Eastern European countries

3.  Diamonds that emerged in sports-centered countries – Switzerland (Federer, Hingis), Brazil (Kuerten), Argentina (Vilas, Gaudio, Sabatini), Belgium (Henin, Clijsters)

The countries in category #2 and #3 can be inter-changed, if you differ from my list, but that is not the major point of contention in this debate. I agree with Gautam that a country has to become strong in a few sports at a minimum before it can start producing slam champions.  It appears that tennis players must be physically fit, strong, fast and not have weaknesses in important aspects of the game to become slam champions.

What are Indian players lacking to become slam champions in singles?  A core group of 15 youngsters is a good start by Bhupathi’s Academy, but is that number enough to produce a slam champion?  Similar schemes in boxing, archery, weight-lifting, shooting and volleyball have been in place for several years in India and yet we have only one Olympic silver medal in shooting to show for this effort.

[sameerph]

I too think that is more of a marketing ploy to talk about producing grand slam champion . When a corporate like Apollo Tyres is putting in so much money it will expect some mileage from it. If instead they something like " Mission to produce 3 top 100 players by 2018" ( which is more realisitic aim) none would be interested.

Anyway, it is better that some kids would be getting some good dedicated training programme & their expenses would be taken care of. More & more such programmes would eventually help produce at least top 100 players.

Here is another point of view by Sukhwant from DNA :-

http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?newsid=1141177

[sameerph]

This is another article on the same misssion with more details :-

http://www.rediff.com/sports/2007/dec/24apollo.htm

[S_K_S]

We will not produce a champion unless our school system is revolutionised and sports are included in the curriculum. Academies can try and replace schools but the jury is still out on whether the artificial environment is poductive in the long run.

[BSharma]

http://www.rediff.com/sports/2007/dec/24apollo.htm

(Rohan Mehra, age 5+ -- the youngest child in the entire group. Studies in Kindergarten, Delhi Public School, East of Kailash)

The link provided above by Sameer has the names, ages and residences of the 15 players selected to be trained at Bhupathi's academy.  I admire and applaud what Mahesh has done for Indian tennis and hopefully this venture with Apollo Tyres will produce a new brand of well-trained tennis players in a few years, but I am against a 5-year-old child being accepted into the academy.  Most sports experts feel that 5 year of age is too young to focus on one sport and these young children should play a variety of sports and then focus on one sport once they are older.  It would have been better if the under ten year old children selected to the academy (there are seven of them) were trained locally (six are from Delhi or Mumbai) and brought to the academy about three or four times a year for two-week long training stints.

[prasen9]

Do you think the US is going to produce a new (non-Roddick) grand slam men's tennis champion in 10 years?  Or the UK?  Spain will most probably (French) and Russia may.  I don't follow junior tennis as avidly as Jay and others here do.  But, producing a GS champion is no mean task.  Even first-world economies cannot do it.  It does require a freak of nature, so one cannot really predict it.  I think if India produces one men's player who is in the top-20 in 10 years that will be *real* progress.

[BSharma]

Do you think the US is going to produce a new (non-Roddick) grand slam men's tennis champion in 10 years?  ....

I believe that 18-year-old Donald Young of USA has a good chance of winning a slam title in a few years.  He has come to play in Tulsa for the past two years and I have seen a distinct improvement in his game.  I believe that USTA gave him too many wild cards at ATP level tournaments (International series) in 2005 when he was not ready for that level of play and he did the right thing to start at the Futures level in 2006 and mix up some challenger level tournaments.  He moved up to the challenger level this year and became one of its dominant players towards the latter part of the year.  He won the junior Wimbledon singles title and lost a 5 4-setter in the third round of US Open in 2007.  He started the year ranked at #495 and climbed up to #100 on Dec 24, 2007 with #98 in mid-November being his highest ranking.  He has a good lefty serve, is quick on the court and has decent and strong ground-strokes off both flanks.

Sam Querrey may have an outside chance of winning a slam title in a few years.

[v george]

Sam Querrey has a good chance of getting inside top 20.  Donald Young is a very good player.  It will be a surprise if he gets inside top 50. 

Donald Young won the first round of US open. Second round he got a w/o from Richard Gasquet. Third round he lost to Feliciano Lopez in 4 sets.

USTA recently started full time resident academy for the top juniors in the country (from age 10 thru 18) at Chris Evert’s tennis center solely for developing top players. This academy is located in my neighborhood. We have to wait and see. These sorts of development are based on hypothesis and theories which are waiting to be verified.