What ails Indian tennis? Nearly nobody in top-300s

[prashanthm]

Such an irony. A player like Sania couldn't convince the country that we need to invest in the game, infra and its players.

At least she could correct the course now by taking things into her own hands now.... But instead it looks like she's probably going to be setting something up in Dubai....

[Omkara]

That's not her job. Is Sachin investing his personal money to grow talent? Rather he is charging money. Everytime he is with a IPL team.

Let's let's stop blaming her. If she believes her best is to be in Dubai, her call

[jayakris]

Sania does have an academy in Hyderabad, and dad Imran Mirza runs it.

To be fair, Sania has had an impact. So many players are coming out of Hyderabad these days. Nationally, it is not her fault that Indians just don't accept her as fully an Indian, just because she married a Pakistani. Time and again she showed up for India, and she has done her part. It is for the Indians to appreciate what Sania was, give her proper respect, and have kids use her as motivation. If Indian kids and parents don't do that, it is not Sania's fault.

[Atithee]

Sad to see even Hong Kong having more top-400 players (three) than India has (two).

It’s sad, but the reasons aren’t that obscure. The motivation, level of effort, entitlement, and blame everyone else but yourself contributes to this sad state of affairs. I already wrote how even lowly players get a diva mentality and don’t want to listen to anybody because they know the best. Their parents probably play a big role too as initially there are no sponsors.

Of course, it’s not equally applicable to everyone, and there could be some exceptions. But, I feel strongly about these aspects.

Pleas move this to general discussion asap.

[Rajiv]

Sad to see even Hong Kong having more top-400 players (three) than India has (two).

The reason being ,Hong Kong has a fully fledged program called HONG KONG PROGRESSIVE DEVELOPMENT SYSTEM which identifies and works with wards who are about 10 year old This pathway lasts for about 7 to 8 years and runs into 3 different stages where the suitable players are eliminated or progressed to the next stage.

Successful candidates from this program are then taken into Elite Program of which Coleman Wong the Junior Grand Slam winner is the product.
Coleman wong is around 600 in the ATP rankings after Jakarta Futures ,with a semi's showing and anticipate him to be a top 300 player by next year with a mix of Futures and Challengers

We spoke about Coleman Wong and Filipino Junior GS slam champion Alexandria Eala after the USO and both Wong and Eala are in a relationship

[Rajiv]

, to a talented 20 year old Hong Kong player, Adithya Karunaratne (#301).

Yes Adithya a SriLankan origin player is quite a talent, and recently won a 15k event in Tunisia , having come out of the Elite Program, she is now based in Barcelona under the tutelage of Juan Balcells who coached Ram for many years.

[jayakris]

Ok, moved the posts on the desperate condition of Indian tennis, here. Mod, Jay

[sameerph]

I just checked that last time we had no Indian player in top 300 was on 14th March 2005, more than 17 years back. The week after that Harsh Mankad moved to top 300. Before that I think for 3-4 years we had none in top 300 after Leander stopped playing singles seriously. After that Harsh was in and out of top 300 for next 3 years, but even when he was outside top 300, Prakash Amriraj and Rohan Bopanna were intermittently there in top 300. After that Somdev came along in 2008, then Yuki, Saketh, Prajnesh, Sumit, RamK all went even to top 150.

Now, looks like the dark days of 2002-2005 of no player in top 300 will be back again after next week. Hopefully it will not last long this time.

[Rajiv]

And on Monday in the live rankings we shall have a new #1, Prajnesh @ #347 and Mukund a close behind @# 353, and the #3 Ram @420

And as Jay says we will wait for the proverbial next week/year, for things to improve but realistically not at all hopeful and feel that it will stay on a similar pattern as 2022 or even worse.

[jayakris]

I am not hopeful for a top-150 soon, but I think Sumit and Prajnesh will be back in top-300 without too much delay. Maybe Mukund too. One of them may even get into top-200 but not much more hopeful than that. We may not see a top-100 player for a while - like 4 years or more, barring big surprises. Karman from the women's side is the only one I feel has top-100 possibilities in the next year or two itself. Sumit could still surprise us, but it is doubtful.

[sameerph]

In the immediate short term, points defending wise, RamK and Sumit have best chance. They have 0 points to defend for first 4 months of next year, Prajnesh has 60 points to defend from Mexico challenger final in March 2023, Mukund has 33 to defend in January from Turkey Challenger final.

All of them need 80 to 100 points to make it top 300 in first quarter of 2023. Hope they will take benefit of Pune ATP and 3/4 challengers planned in India in Feb/March 2023 to do that or better.

[rajitghosh]

https://www.rediff.com/sports/report/wh ... 230105.htm

A good assessment of the situation by Anand Amritraj.

[jayakris]

^^^ A good roundup of the situation, but I wish Anand would give some (any) details or solution to what is going on. Just saying, "they need to close out matches" is not enough. And he is not correct that they are winning at the challenger level. None of them is. If they were consistently reaching semis or better in challengers, they would do much better in ATP too, winning a round or two here and there.

Just saying that "it is all in between the ears" and that it is all a mental issue does not help. It is not. We can all see the kind of mistakes our players make in shot selection. It is because several shots are low-percentage and are not coached well. None of our players appear to get good coaching advice on a consistent basis at this time. At least we don't see any signs of it. Anand is right that they are all quite good in ground strokes (unlike 25 years ago), but the mistakes they make (second serve accuracy, overheads, drop shots, volleys, footwork) are glaring and they continue to be made. This problem pervades across all of them. Even players who used to do some of these things right, are not doing it any more. When the game deteriorates, coaches need to be there to fix it, and the players need to become humble enough to listen to the coaches too.

As a start, take a proper December break for coaching and training and stop doing Tamasha events. I wish Anand would advice all of them to take proper breaks for fixing their deteriorated games and lower-percentage shots' mechanics. They all need to become very technical and detail-oriented. The vague comments like "just close out matches better" is no good advice, really.

[sameerph]

True, all these past greats are only doing some kind of advisory roles at best and passing comments on the deterioration in game of our players. But, hardly anyone is into proper coaching to get it fixed. And here Anand is talking about closing out matches against top 100 or top 150 level players, not an easy feat at all considering that at the moment our players are struggling to win anything at challenger level. Considering their current form, actually I was surprised that they were run these top 100-150 players so close.

[sameerph]

This is a good detailed article by Amanpreet Singh on the state of Indian tennis-

The plight of Indian tennis: The whys, whats and hows