The Sports-India Community

Atithee wrote: ↑Tue Sep 19, 2017 7:06 pm There is one world class individual player we have today and that is PV Sindhu in badminton. That's all.

When have we ever had more?

We had Saina for a while before, and that's it. Jeev had a couple of seasons when he could be called that.

The last one in tennis was Vijay 3 decades back.

At least, we have Sindhu now; and Saina, Srikanth and Anirban who are close.

Ramesh Krishnan was surely a world class player too, making the QF at the US Open twice and Wimbledon once, and beating the reigning world #1 (and holder of 3 of the Slams at the time) at the AO in 1989.

Sin Hombre wrote: ↑Wed Sep 20, 2017 1:57 am When have we ever had more

This was a tangential observation. I wasn't comparing the number of world class players across eras. Sorry for the confusion.

BTW, What is the definition of world class? Why Saina is not considered world class? She just won bronze medal is world championship and is ranked in top 12. And for that matter Shrikant. Are we confusing world class with Best player in the world?

I think let us keep the discussion to Tennis players in this thread. Else, in olympic sport Sushil Kumar and Yogeshwar Dutt were surely world class and many of our shooters were also world class. If you want to discuss about all Indian sportsmen we can move it to another thread.

Sorry, gals and guys, Saina was world class. You cannot say that an Olympic medal winner is not world class. Add two world championships medals to that. I am all for high standards, but, it is ludicrous to say that top-3 in the world is not world class. That is taking things to the extreme.

Maybe some of the posts from this thread do need to be moved to general tennis threads or a general sports thread if the moderators have some time.

prasen9 wrote: ↑Wed Sep 20, 2017 3:22 am Sorry, gals and guys, Saina was world class. You cannot say that an Olympic medal winner is not world class. Add two world championships medals to that. I am all for high standards, but, it is ludicrous to say that top-3 in the world is not world class. That is taking things to the extreme.

Maybe some of the posts from this thread do need to be moved to general tennis threads or a general sports thread if the moderators have some time.

Who said Saina wasn't world class - she is not one at this point. Hopefully she can get back to that level post-injuries.

One last post on this sameer

If we consider chess as a sport, then Anand was world class for more than 2 decades.

Essentially, we had Vijay, Anand, Saina, Sindhu

SaniaFan wrote: ↑Wed Sep 20, 2017 2:57 am BTW, What is the definition of world class? Why Saina is not considered world class? She just won bronze medal is world championship and is ranked in top 12. And for that matter Shrikant. Are we confusing world class with Best player in the world?

Depends on how global the sport is and how professional it is.

For a sport like tennis or golf, a consistent top 15/20 player is considered world class. In tennis, that would mean reaching multiple slam QFs and winning at least one tour level tournament a season on average.

Badminton which is more limited geographically and is professionally where tennis was 2 decades back (in terms of prize money and such), that would be a consistent top 5 player.

Amateur Olympic sports - multi Olympic medalists may be considered world class.

I think Saina can be called world-class even now. The proof is that she got a bronze at the WC not so long ago. And, if there is another big tournament, which she is aiming to peak for, she may well be a semi-finalist again. I don't think she has the stamina left to play and win week in and week out.

Sin Hombre wrote: ↑Wed Sep 20, 2017 3:45 am One last post on this sameer .

No. You can discuss as much as you want. I will move these posts to another thread soon.

Clearly, most of you didn't read the articles I posted. And, my reference was not about Davis cup per se Prasen. It was merely about how great a tennis nation we are. Anyway, definition of world class is relative. Saina is not world class today in my opinion. She was world class at one time but not at Sindhu's current level because she never really stopped being "Wanged" in her career. That's it from me on this topic.

I have opened this new thread and moving relevant posts from davis cup thread here. We can continue the discussion here.

Before taking this thread forward define the sports where world class players can be nominated. For e.g. would billiards or kabaddi or even hockey qualify? Or are we only talking of tennis, golf and badminton. What about the national obsession- cricket?

I think we should talk about all sports now here. No bar.

In that case the 1st name among current players would be Pankaj Advani. SV Sunil, Shreejesh and Saradara Singh also make it as do most cricketers- Kohli, Jadeja, Ashwin, Pujara, Shami, Dhoni. Joshna Chinappa qualifies as well though Dipika Pallikal has regressed a bit.