Funding and Sponsorships for Indian Players

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Funding and Sponsorships for Indian Players

Post by prasen9 »

Seven tennis players receive TOPS funding of Rs. 50,000 per month. This is peanuts for international expenses, but, maybe something is better than nothing. Interestingly, LP, Saketh, and Ankita have been left out. There is no reason to give LP money. I don't know if Saketh's recent grant from the AP government caused him to be out of the list. Or his low current ranking. Raina is a curious case.

Sorry if this has been discussed elsewhere. And, sorry if we already had a thread for this topic. I did not seem to find one.
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Re: Funding and Sponsorships for Indian Players

Post by Sin Hombre »

I have asked this before but why can't we create a funding program (charity) off sports-india and use it to help out some of our younger emerging talent. Of course, it is a lot of work and someone will have to volunteer to dedicate time to it.
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Re: Funding and Sponsorships for Indian Players

Post by vatsal323 »

Sin Hombre wrote: Wed Sep 27, 2017 1:25 am I have asked this before but why can't we create a funding program (charity) off sports-india and use it to help out some of our younger emerging talent. Of course, it is a lot of work and someone will have to volunteer to dedicate time to it.
That is a wonderful idea I think, since I know a couple of players personally, looking out for sponsorships/funding. Nitin Kumar Sinha is one name that obviously stands out since he is one of our brightest prospects, and has the potential to make it big on the world stage. How can we create this program? Any suggestions/ideas?
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Re: Funding and Sponsorships for Indian Players

Post by Prashant »

This notion has come up off & on over the years on these boards. I don't think it would be easy to identify the recipients though. Talent alone (even if we could agree on that) isn't enough. I'd be happy to help sponsor someone who had a detailed blueprint for how sponsorship would be used - akin to a business plan.

Vatsal, just curious why you think Nitin Kumar Sinha is an obvious choice? I'm not talking about his talent, or the fact that you know him personally. I'm asking what evidence we have that he'd use additional sponsorship well. And, more broadly, how we'd define what "good" use of sponsorship is in the first place.
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Re: Funding and Sponsorships for Indian Players

Post by Sin Hombre »

Those are of course the two main questions - how do you define talent and what is the best usage of any money garnered.

I think the former is a relatively simple question to answer, a small community like ours can probably only help a couple, maybe 3 athletes. India doesn't have many teenagers who are at least progressing at a high enough trajectory where investing money has potential significant future upside.
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Re: Funding and Sponsorships for Indian Players

Post by vatsal323 »

Prashant wrote: Wed Sep 27, 2017 2:42 am
Vatsal, just curious why you think Nitin Kumar Sinha is an obvious choice? I'm not talking about his talent, or the fact that you know him personally. I'm asking what evidence we have that he'd use additional sponsorship well. And, more broadly, how we'd define what "good" use of sponsorship is in the first place.
Alright, I had a few long chats with Nitin's dad. So here it goes -

Our top prospects from among the juniors now are :

Siddhant Banthia(Rank - 62, Events Played - 34, has a 20-25 lac yearly sposnsorship from Cycle Agarbathies and some NGO, was at the Mouratoglou Academy for a couple of weeks)
Adil Kalyanpur(Rank - 99, Events Played - 26, has a 3 year scholarship at the Rafa Nadal Academy)
Nitin Kumar Sinha(Rank - 101, Events Played - 13, Hardly has any sponsorship, just hits with other players and has no real training opportunities)
Dhruv Sunish(Rank - 130, Events Played - 17, Has decent funding/backing from the MSLTA, was in Spain for a couple of months for training)

So I think it's pretty clear that from among our top bunch of guys, Nitin is the one in need of some assistance. Nitin has only played in events at home, or a few in Thailand or so, coupled with the Aussie Open and US Open qualies. This is in sharp contrast to his peers, who've had the exposure of playing in different conditions(This is very well reflected in the number of events played).
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Re: Funding and Sponsorships for Indian Players

Post by prasen9 »

I think in the last ITF Futures, Nitin beat Banthia in straight sets.
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Re: Funding and Sponsorships for Indian Players

Post by sameerph »

Thanks, Vatsal. Yes, Nitin appears to be one with the least resources among our top juniors as of now.
prasen9 wrote: Wed Sep 27, 2017 12:34 am Seven tennis players receive TOPS funding of Rs. 50,000 per month. This is peanuts for international expenses, but, maybe something is better than nothing. Interestingly, LP, Saketh, and Ankita have been left out. There is no reason to give LP money. I don't know if Saketh's recent grant from the AP government caused him to be out of the list. Or his low current ranking. Raina is a curious case.
Yes, I was wondering about how Ankita Raina was left out from there when Karman and Prarthana are there. I think Ankita receives funding from Gujarat government for travel and training. I wonder if that is the reason for her being left out. But, then I guess RamK is also receiving something from TNTA and perhaps Prarthana from MSLTA too. Ankita has been India #1 for at least 3-4 years now. So, no reason for her to be left out.
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Re: Funding and Sponsorships for Indian Players

Post by prasen9 »

This sort of thing is bizarre. If there is a justification, and most possibly there is, even if it is to say that we do not have high hopes from Ankita going forward and want to prioritize youth, or that Saketh is injured and will be considered when he is playing, or whatever, that should be clearly communicated to avoid discouraging people unnecessarily.
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Re: Funding and Sponsorships for Indian Players

Post by sameerph »

AITA is seeking justification from government for exclusion of Ankita Raina from tops funding and Somdev's role is questioned in this article.

AITA wants to know reasons for Ankita Raina’s TOPS exclusion
“She has not won any medal and she has not won any Nationals, she is number one (in India) but she needs to win some medals because the TOP scheme is meant for the Olympics. She needs to show some progress.
“Even in her ranking, there is no progress. If she progresses, we can push her case. She has not won the National Hard Courts even once,” Chatterjee said.
This is silly excuse when Ankita has been India #1 for over 4 years now.
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Re: Funding and Sponsorships for Indian Players

Post by jayakris »

Absolutely. Ankita Raina needs to get support; period. Unless she is getting some huge support from the Gujarat govt or something (I don't think so), she should be in the list. You don't drop somebody who has been at the top in India for as long as she has, so early. How old is she? Just around 24, right? Actually I might have even bought an argument that she was past her prime and we should give up when she fell from her earlier high rank around 225 to around 325 early this year. But she has had a good run the last few months with the China challenger final and a couple of semis. She is again moving up, and this is not the time to say that she needs to show more and all that. Come on.
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Re: Funding and Sponsorships for Indian Players

Post by VReddy »

To call out about the Rs 50k amount. This is a stipend amount which is new (more like out of pocket expenses that don't need receipt). This is an initiative of Rathore. The players as part of the TOPS scheme has been usually receiving about Rs 15-45 lakhs / yr if we go by the previous Olympic stats.

To counter the above arguments about player selection, this is a scheme for Olympics only. The player would have to make the MD cut for the Olympics in the first place to be eligible i.e., top 80-100 . If we look at the selections

1. Yuki Bhambri : Potential to be in the top-100
2. Ramkumar Ramanathan : Potential to be in the top-100 by then
3. Rohan Bopanna : May continue to be top30 player by 2020
4. Sumit Nagal - Potential top 100-150 by 2020
5. Sania Mirza - If she plays, likely to be in top-20
6. Prarthana Thombare : 100-200 rank doubles
7. Karman Kaur Thandi - Potential top 100-150 by 2020 (?)

Now if we take the case of Ankita Raina, we would likely see her in the 175-300 ranking which given the criteria for the TOPS scheme, does not fit the bill. I would personally make the case of Ankita being the stronger #2 doubles player but the ranking is not there yet. Somdev could have taken a safer, non-controversial route of including her but I see no wrong with the above reasoning too.

Also regd the player sponsorship - one could use wyop.ch which is a registered charity (can be used for employer match for donations).
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Re: Funding and Sponsorships for Indian Players

Post by jaydeep »

Yes, again stupid reasoning by the person, who is sitting in the association ... They should have recommended Ankita's name on the list from the beginning.
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Re: Funding and Sponsorships for Indian Players

Post by prasen9 »

VReddy, interesting argument. And, I think that has some merit. But, as I often do here, I will take the adversarial position to tease out the argument in full. Why do you think that Yuki and RamK can make top-100, and Sumit can make top-150 but Ankita cannot make top-150? Also, is a top-150 any use in the Olympics? Is Thombare making 100-200 in doubles of any use in the Olympics?
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Re: Funding and Sponsorships for Indian Players

Post by VReddy »

prasen9 wrote: Sun Oct 08, 2017 5:43 pm VReddy, interesting argument. And, I think that has some merit. But, as I often do here, I will take the adversarial position to tease out the argument in full. Why do you think that Yuki and RamK can make top-100, and Sumit can make top-150 but Ankita cannot make top-150? Also, is a top-150 any use in the Olympics? Is Thombare making 100-200 in doubles of any use in the Olympics?
Yuki - When he has an injury free year, he is ranked between 100-125. I will not elaborate on his potential top-100 ability if he is injury free (for say 2-3 yrs) as am assuming we are all onboard

Ram - He is just 22 and is already ranked in the top-150. His usual game pattern has been that he makes these jumps every 3 years (700 -> 250s -> 150s). I think it would be a fair assumption to make that he would stabilize around 125 to 175 for the next 2-3 yrs and then gradually make another jump into the 80-120 bucket as he improves overall game (specifically backhand / serve return - I definately see minor progress on BH already). He would be aged 25 by 2020 and players usually start peaking around that age.

Sumit - He is following a similar trajectory as Ram and is in the phase of transitioning to Challengers. He already dominates Futures events (even in Europe), so likely on the same career track as Ram.

Ankita - Haven't seen her play much but she has been at a similar ranking trajectory since 2013. Most telling factor for me is that when she does occasionally mix it with Futures (15/25ks), she doesn't really dominate them and is usually consistent in reaching SF/QFs whereas when Sumit / Ram play Futures, they cruise through and win the titles at a pretty consistent rate in Europe too which clearly shows they are a clearly a class above while with Ankita, I don't get that impression. I get the feeling that if she chooses, she can clearly be the #2 doubles player incase Sania plays till 2020.

In the overall scheme of things, none of the above have a chance to win a medal but if at all somebody has to get funding then its atleast somebody who should be able to make the cut for the Olympics MD.

Regd doubles ranking of Prarthana - it doesn't matter much with her but its Sania who would call the shots here as without her, both Ankita / Prarthana can't play Olympics. It turns out Prarthana is a trainee at the Sania Mirza Tennis Academy but before we go into this dodgy topic, for now atleast, Prarthana is clearly the #2 doubles player by ranking. However if say Sania decides to retire in the next year or two, then if I were Somdev, I would stop the funding for Prarthana too.
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