BCCI to fund tennis players

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Insider
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Re: BCCI to fund tennis players

Post by Insider »

sunitarao wrote: I am  surprised that some of the forum  members have raised  eye brows  at Karan  getting some financial  support from BCCI .

    Its  obvious that  Karan  is not playing his best tennis right now.    However,  it happens with  even the best players.    They  go through the lean phase.
No good players go through a phase like Karan is going through now.  And very few decent players regress between the ages of 19 and 22.
Even during this lean phase,  Karan  has defeated  ,    one  of the most crafty players,  HM,  not  once  but twice.
Karan struggled to defeat an injured and out of form Mankad, who is only top-225 at the best of times.
In  Delhi future  he lost to Kedryuk,  from a winning position.
Woulda, coulda, shoulda.  Kedryuk is no great shakes anyway.

    In fact  that  has been his story  past few months  _  losing to hot player , from  winning position.
"Losing comprehensively" would be closer to the mark than this.
      That does not take away anything from Karans  profile.    Our best junior since Lee: 
Credit to KR for blooming early, but much more is required for him to succeed as an adult.  Some of his peers, including Vivek, had and have more potential.  Sanam also is much more talented than Karan and is more likely to achieve a good ATP ranking.
  Though  Yuki  is coming along,    but he will take some time to catch  up with Karan_  even for junior  level.
By all accounts, Yuki has a lot more potential than Karan did/does.
    Even at pro level    KR  has  pretty good record  better than any of his contemporary
Somdev and Sanam are much better than Rastogi.  Vivek (who is a year younger) is no worse.
_ winning satellite  and    four  or five  futures,    including that clay court win in Morocco. 
Rastogi can't seem to beat anyone decent outside his home turf.
And ,of course ,  defeating a top  100  player at atp chennai,
He beat Thiago Alves, who was horribly jet lagged.  Rastogi would be blown off the court by Alves under normal circumstances.
  playing big match against nadal
Just by Rastogi's standards.  By anyone else's, it was a comprehensive  4-6 1-6 straight sets loss.
and defeating about  six or seven  top  200  players.                                                                 
This statistic seems inflated.
        How can we forget  his win against Greul,  who reached a career high rank of top 70.  IF SKD defeating  Isner  is a great acievement,  simply because  Isner reached  a top 110  ranking,    then  Karan  defeating greul is more imp because  greul reached top 70  and Karan beat him  when Karan was only  18 or 19
Bad logic.  First of all, Isner is ranked #94 and will likely be top-50 by the time he finishes a complete year on tour.  Furthermore, he beat great players very soon after Somdev beat him in the NCAA final.  I believe Greul achieved his good ranking much later and hadn't beaten anyone exceptional around the time Karan beat him.


In summary, Karan's potential is small and until he shows some semblance of fire in his belly he is unlikely to make even the top-400.
Last edited by Insider on Mon Mar 03, 2008 11:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: BCCI to fund tennis players

Post by sunitarao »

Its  sad  that some people , who have perhaps hardly played any sport,  can down grade  our young player who has been our top four player for the last three years    and has defeated all indian players except PA;  Its further shocking that the people    who are knowledgeable and  are mature have completely ignored this tirade against karan,  which is based on misinformation and distorted facts .

    I would like to put certain facts  on the right perspective,  which I have checked and can vouch for

  1  Alves ,Thiago  arrived  in chennai  sunday  morning  and checked in official hotel  at  3 am;  Karan played  his match on tuesday  evening,  so  alves had almost three days to recover from any jet leg.  In pro tennis that is more than sufficient.

    2  during his match against nadal,  I    was watching it live on tv. Anand amritraj was  giving commentry.  he was so impressed    that so many times in first set he commented  that  its difficult to tell who is no 2 and who is no 490  , as karan is matching  nadal in every sphere of game.

    Next  day papers  stated that this was the best match played , here,by an indian  since lee played semi final.

    3  karan has defeated following    top players  in pro tennis  and yes no one conceded his match due to sick ness or injury

    istomin,  muffet, greul,  kubot,  alves,  thomas cakl , jamie  delgado

  there may be some more  besides  RB, HM  _thrice and sunil-  thrice

      shokeen,  sanam    etc  are obviously talented  and will come up.  but right now they are way behind.

      Its  disgusting    that one serious player is slogging out in the field,  playing some time in extreme cold of china  and then in hot and humid weather  of ivory coast    and some  forum members  try to pull him down just because  last few months have not been good for him.

      He is one of the brightest indian man players  , according to me he is the brightest.  but i will call  him  one of the brightest because  many forum members are, some how, not sympathetic to  him _  may be they see him as a threat to their favourite players.  There are so many other things I can point out  but i wish some senior members who know facts  should come forward and stop this tirade against karan.
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Re: BCCI to fund tennis players

Post by BSharma »

sunitarao wrote: Its  sad   that some people , who have perhaps hardly played any sport,   can down grade   our young player who has been our top four player for the last three years    and has defeated all indian players except PA;   Its further shocking that the people    who are knowledgeable and  are mature have completely ignored this tirade against karan,  which is based on misinformation and distorted facts .

 . . . i wish some senior members who know facts  should come forward and stop this tirade against karan.

Sunitarao,

I admire the passion with which you support Karan and I would certainly not want you to change your stance.  This forum is all about supporting all players and some write more often about one player than another.  I believe that some of us have our favorite player(s), but I think that most of the time, we do not try to bring down a particular player. 

Some members may disagree with my opinion about a player and it is ok with me because people have a right to voice their opinion.  The problem gets magnified when we start comparing players, especially when the opinion is based more on subjective than objective findings.  Please keep in mind that often the objective data are from several months to a few years back and may not be relevant anymore.  Comparing players can also result in a member feeling that his or her favorite player got slighted by another member.

I do not think that members are upset with Karan because they see him as a threat to their favorite player(s).  Most members want Indian tennis to prosper above that of an invidual player e.g., I will be happier if any of the Indian players gets into the top 100 or top 50 or top 10 and my happiness will increase further if more than one player makes it into the elite level.

Many members are concerned with the lack of progress and recent results of Karan.  He is a talented player, has worked hard on his fitness, has gone to USA to get training and plays all over the world to improve his game and ranking.  I think that members are sympathetic to Karan's cause and many of us are sad that he is unable to break through into the top 200.  Many members feel that Karan should correct whatever is preventing him from achieving higher degree of success.  None of us are tennis experts, but we give advice about what should be done by Karan to improve his game because we want him to succeed. 

Karan is one of the brightest Indian male players currently playing on the Tour, but many forum members may disagree with you that he is the brightest.  I will not ask you to change your opinion of the brightest player and please don't get upset if other members name another player.  :D
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Re: BCCI to fund tennis players

Post by amr090 »

Bhushanji, I must say I enjoy how you always try to keep the peace, and stay politically correct.


SunitaRao, I too admire your support of Karan, but it is pretty clear that you are totally partial towards him and retain no sense of objectivity when it comes to evaluating our tennis players.

Karan is full of potential, but sadly after a bright start to his pro career, he really has stagnated, if not seemingly gotten worse.  The last year was just horrendous for him, where he did absolutely nothing in the majority of the tournaments he played.  I agree he has potential and skill, but unfortunately he is realizing very little of it with his play.  He has lost all types of matches..close losses, uninspired losses, and has gotten whooped.  These losses have come to all types of players at all types of levels.


My personal opinion is that it was wrong of the BCCI because of his string of poor performances for over a year.  Personally I would be pouring in this money to someone younger (Yuki Bhambri) who has potential to break top 100 levels at a young age.  I would use this money to fund our best juniors ages 16-19 in the hopes that 3 years of top funding and training will enable to break into the top 150 by 22 or so.

The majority of our players are over 22, and it is very rare to reach the upper echelons of tennis if you dont do so around this age.  Of course there are always exceptions but the odds are, if you are a super talent you tent to at least hit the top 200 by 22 or so.  The fact that Karan hasn't even been close to that yet indicates to me that the BCCI fnding him him instead of another deserving younger player is a mistake.


Nothing against Karan, but he really hasn't come anywhere close to showing the potential necessary for anyone to start throwing large sums of money.  at him.  My opinion would change if he starts going deep in at least the lowest level of challengers (25k) consistently.


I think he's made a good movie going to Ivory Coast and getting some wins, because for the last year he's had trouble even winning the first rounds of tournaments.  There is really no real quality if players in the current tournament but at least if he can get some wins and get confidence who knowswhat can happen.
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Re: BCCI to fund tennis players

Post by kujo »

amr090 wrote: I think he's made a good movie going to Ivory Coast and getting some wins, because for the last year he's had trouble even winning the first rounds of tournaments.  There is really no real quality if players in the current tournament but at least if he can get some wins and get confidence who knowswhat can happen.
I had no idea that Karan was into movie making. Have you watched that movie yet?  what is the title!?  ;)

just kidding arun, don't mind me....
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Re: BCCI to fund tennis players

Post by BSharma »

kujo wrote:
amr090 wrote: I think he's made a good movie going to Ivory Coast and getting some wins, because for the last year he's had trouble even winning the first rounds of tournaments.  There is really no real quality if players in the current tournament but at least if he can get some wins and get confidence who knowswhat can happen.
I had no idea that Karan was into movie making. Have you watched that movie yet?  what is the title!?  ;)

just kidding arun, don't mind me....
kujo,

Those are the kind of "senior" moments people such as me should be having and not someone like Arun.  :wink:  BTW, Sunitarao asked only the "senior citizens" to reply and what is Arun doing here?  (just kidding Sunitarao and Arun)  :D
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Re: BCCI to fund tennis players

Post by PKBasu »

Having just seen the posts above, there appear to be only two or three people who have objected to Karan getting funding (Rajiv, mamta, wrestlinglife -- the latter two in about a sentence each, Rajiv in a couple). I don't think this constitutes the forum as a whole raising objections or a "tirade" in the forum, and I don't think it is the task of "senior members" of the forum (the forty and fifty somethings like Bhushan, Jay, Jai, me, etc.  :D) to police free speech in this forum.

I appreciate the continuing passion that sunitarao brings to her defense of Karan (btw, it is worth pointing out of course that our forum member sunitarao is not the same person as the player Sunitha Rao!). She makes several good points. Karan had some excellent wins until 2-3 years ago, including over Greul, Istomin, etc. What we need to understand is what exactly has gone wrong with him since. Those two who Karan defeated have advanced, but somehow Karan's results have regressed since he received sponsorship (from Dewan Housing, I believe) about a year ago. On one point I cannot agree with sunitarao, however: it is no longer true that Karan is "our best junior since LP". Karan made the SF of the Australian Open in his final year as a junior, Yuki has already done so at the age of 16, and Yuki also won the Asia/Oceania championship at the age of 15+. There is little doubt that Yuki is our best junior since Leander, and in fact possibly our best player ever at the age of 16.

We all look forward to Karan getting his career back on track. All players are entitled to a slump in form occasionally. Karan's slump in the past half-year (since winning a Futures in Morocco, and obtaining funding soon afterwards) is inexplicable, and we all hope that he can begin to put it all together and start winning again. For those of us who have been following Karan since he was the world's highest-ranked 14-year-old boy, the last couple of years have been frustrating. But we should not lose hope, and will continue to support him in any way possible. If he gets funding from multiple sources (Dewan Housing, BCCI, etc.), more power to him. The key is to translate that funding into a substantive improvement in performance and rankings, which we will hopefully start seeing after this week in Cote d'Ivoire. 
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Re: BCCI to fund tennis players

Post by jai_in_canada »

I did not add a comment here because, frankly, I have no idea whether Karan deserves sponsorship from BCCI.  I have only followed his development sporadically, and it seems to ebb and flow quite a bit.  I am a little spoilt because my awareness of tennis grew at the same time that Vijay, Anand and Ashok were shooting up the world standings while still in their late teens.  A decade later in the late 70's, we had that to some extent with Ramesh, and another decade later to a lesser extent with Leander.  However, I really don't sense the same level of excitement around Karan other than in this forum.  So, in essence, I do not know whether Sunita is right or whether mamta-Rajiv-wrestlinglife have valid points.  I do wonder why Sunita is so upset that people express their opinions, even if she believes that they are misinformed.
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Re: BCCI to fund tennis players

Post by puneets »

It goes without saying that there is bound to be some controversy in whatever BCCI does. They have the (anti) midas touch.
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Re: BCCI to fund tennis players

Post by sameerph »

PKBasu wrote: Having just seen the posts above, there appear to be only two or three people who have objected to Karan getting funding (Rajiv, mamta, wrestlinglife -- the latter two in about a sentence each, Rajiv in a couple).
I think Sunitarao's post  was in response to Insider's post just above that . (which was a bit harsh on Karan)

I too admire Sunitarao's support for Karan . However, repeating his past achivements again & again in multiple posts ( specially when he is currently not doing well) does irritate people. It is better to keep quiet when a player is going thru a slump like Karan is.

As for BCCI , I think it functions more on personal equations rather then any system.

Anyway, hopefully, Karan will benefit from this help & show better results this year.

   

 
Last edited by jayakris on Sun Mar 09, 2008 5:10 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: BCCI to fund tennis players

Post by sunitarao »

Thanks for the  peace makers . thats  ecactly what i wanted to involve some seniors and responsible forum members in this discussion.

    Any sponsorship or grant  depends  on  talent  and potential  and not on the present form.  Obviously  karan is not playing any where close to his best form.  But forum members have missed onr imp factor.

    As per times of india  this grant was sancioned by bcci  last year  when karan was at his peak  . at that time shooter  bindra and karan were short listed.  It was a head line in toi.

    Now after one year  they have sanctioned  for karan and one squash player.  we must remember  talent , potential  and serious ness and attitude are permanent  but the form is temporary.  and he is showing signs of recovery.

  its again not proper to say that these futures in ivory coast are easier. the winner of indian futures lost in 2nd rd here .    players from  europe play  here and the draw is full of european players . this is a much tougher field than india  and karan  is showing signs of coming back.

    as for yuki  i have tremendous respect for him.  i am sure he will achieve greater heigts  than karan as a junior and as a pro .  but for  that  first he will have to achieve a  junior ranking  of  three or above. that would be great  and i am sure he can do that.

  i may  be passionate about karan  but i will never speak any thing against any other player  even if they are not doing well.  they are slogging,  sacrificing a lot    .  in fact  when they are not doing well they need more support and assurance from all of us.

  lets be positive about our all players.  if we have to criticise them  it should be in a positive sense and based  on facts.

      I was most upset about the remarks that karan beat that brasilian because he was jet lagged  and  his match agaist nadal was a wash out.
this was the time karan was playing at his peak  and it shows that    when he reaches his peak  he will be a  top class player.  he is still 21  . so dont write him off .  support him;
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Re: BCCI to fund tennis players

Post by usaindian »

hope he takes full advantage of the sponsorship and show some results for it.
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Re: BCCI to fund tennis players

Post by gbelday »

Yeah, go Karan.  I agree with some of what sunitarao says.  Let's not get into who deserves more.  Karan got it and we should support him!!
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Re: BCCI to fund tennis players

Post by Insider »

shokeen,  sanam    etc  are obviously talented  and will come up.  but right now they are way behind.
No chance that Sanam is way behind Karan.  I think he is way ahead.  Any difference between Rastogi and Shokeen is marginal (with Shokeen having more talent and potential).
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Re: BCCI to fund tennis players

Post by jayakris »

Insider - on what basis do you say that Shokeen has more potential?  Not on the basis of their record, right?  Or is it because of height and serve speed?

Not arguing with you, as I believe that Shokeen has very good potential too.

Jay
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