Indian tennis player rankings

[jayakris]

What have squash and badminton “federations” produced? Or any other sport for that matter? Not sure AITA is the absolute worst. We just suck as a sporting nation but not for very long, I feel.

I don't know about squash, badminton, etc, but my criticism of AITA is in comparison to the federations in other Asian countries (like Korea, China, Taiwan, Japan, Thailand, etc) against whom we were mostly on par or ahead even 20 years ago. They all do a lot more to help their junior players while AITA really does NOTHING. Absolutely nothing substantial, except the minimum window-dressing and going through the motions (keeping a rank list, sanctioning tournaments, having a namesake national coaching center that keeps some coaches happy, even some good ones, etc).

That was okay 25 years ago, but it is no longer so, to compete even in Asia.

The nepotistic "happy family" federation needs to be totally dismantled and rebuilt. But that is not going to happen; they are a happy family after all. They don't run into trouble. They stay there doing nothing, keeping everybody happy, except the players who need their help.

[Sin Hombre]

What have squash and badminton “federations” produced? Or any other sport for that matter? Not sure AITA is the absolute worst. We just suck as a sporting nation but not for very long, I feel.

We are a pretty consistent top-7 federation in badminton for a long time now. I would call that a resounding success given we had zero Olympic medals before 2012 and zero World championship medals before 2010.

[sameerph]

I agree about AITA done nothing except organizing tournaments at best although not sure if it is worse than some of the other federations such as wrestling federation whose athletes have won olympic medals.

Btw, just read about this initiative 2 days back-

Lakshya Sports and Amalgam Steel launch Project Grand Slam for girls

Not really an AITA initiative but Sunder Iyer is one of AITA vice presidents or something I think .

[Atithee]

We are a pretty consistent top-7 federation in badminton for a long time now. I would call that a resounding success given we had zero Olympic medals before 2012 and zero World championship medals before 2010.

Was waiting for this response! I don’t think the federation has done much. Isn’t it the academies that are largely responsible for success in badminton? I could be wrong.

[jayakris]

Lakshya Sports and Amalgam Steel launch Project Grand Slam for girls

Not really an AITA initiative but Sunder Iyer is one of AITA vice presidents or something I think .

Sundar Iyer is good, and he cares for tennis and our good players. If I remember correctly, he was good at helping the players when he was actually at AITA headquarters at one time too. He has been doing a lot of good work with MSLTA after that, and I think he is one key reason why Maharashtra has had a healthy tennis culture for a while. That means he is just the kind of person that AITA usually would make a fairly meaningless "vice president". That is their way of making good people, who want AITA to do more, reluctant to criticize AITA. That is why I call it all a happy family. AITA keeps everybody (except the players!) reasonably happy, and AITA never runs into trouble. Nor do the controlling people ever lose any grip on the federation. They never do much, and I think deliberately so. Why do anything to upset the happy mood all around? They are the quintessential definition of a chalta hai federation that has no ambitions for the country nor its tennis.

[Sanjay]

What have squash and badminton “federations” produced? Or any other sport for that matter? Not sure AITA is the absolute worst. We just suck as a sporting nation but not for very long, I feel.

The point is yes, we suck in general, but we are getting better in almost all sports compared to where we were. That itself is pretty good news. Except for tennis, where we have gotten a lot worse.

[Sin Hombre]

We are a pretty consistent top-7 federation in badminton for a long time now. I would call that a resounding success given we had zero Olympic medals before 2012 and zero World championship medals before 2010.

Was waiting for this response! I don’t think the federation has done much. Isn’t it the academies that are largely responsible for success in badminton? I could be wrong.

Academies got lucky with Saina and PVS. Our depth is mostly due to the Federation identifying and spending money on certain players like Satwik/Chirag.

[Atithee]

Wow!

[prasen9]

Academies changed Indian badminton. Gopichand was the main person behind this. Without his academy we do not have Saina or Sindhu. And, we do not have Satwick/Chirag.

Satwick/Chirag were identified and paired by our Malayasian coach and worked in Hyderabad in the Gopichand Academy. Chirag-Satwick pairing Gopichand was the national head coach who also supported them.

The federation, of course, brought in Kim Tan Her, who paired the twin towers. It was a joint venture between the Badminton federation, SAI, and the Indian sports ministry to get the money to get him. He conceptualized this pairing.

I do not think Gopichand could achieve what he did coaching-wise without the federation. The federation did support his endeavors bringing in good quality foreign coaches, providing funding for the academy, etc. It was not the academy alone or the federation alone. And that is the way it should be.

[PKBasu]

There are 6 Indians in the top-100 of doubles:
3. Rohan Bopanna
61. Yuki Bhambri
79. N. Sriram Balaji
83. Vijay Sundar Prashanth
87. Anirudh Chandrasekhar
98. Arjun Kadhe

Six more in the top-200: 101 Saketh, 110 Jeevan, 153 Niki, 162 Rithvik, 178 Divij, 189 Ramkumar.

[PKBasu]

Sadly, there is just a single Indian in the top-150, 200, 300 or 400 in the world. Despite qualifying into the main draw of the Australian Open, Sumit has barely edged up to 137 (from 138 going into the qualifying rounds). The next-highest Indian in singles at the moment is #463 Ramkumar Ramanathan.

[arjun2761]

Looking at the first page at this thread, we didn't have a single player in top 300 at that point although Harsh did reach 299 by the end of the page. So, not that far from our historical rankings at least in this century....

[prasen9]

In essence, in the modern era, or later modern era, or whatever we want to call it, Indian tennis is not that great a system at consistently producing champions. That happens due to freaks. Sania Mirza was a freakish talent. She was also lucky to have gotten familial support and at least the minimum needed to make it. She had quirks due to not having a good set of coaches at the onset of her learning tennis and thus had issues with her serve, etc. that were not fully rectified. Ditto for Somdev. Leander. Mahesh. Etc.

So, we will have the base which is dull with some spikes. Some of the spikes will be higher than the others. We, now have a moderate spike in Sumit. Maybe in the next 10 years, we will have some freakish guy come out of the blue. Until then, it will be these average guys (used gender-neutrally) and some small spikes.

The next big thing is perhaps a junior or maybe just about taking up the racquet. Well, one can hope they will get just about enough support to make it.

[sameerph]

Looking at ATP doubles rankings of our players a the of first quarter of the year ( posting on doubles because nothing much to talk about singles except Sumit)-

1 Rohan Bopanna (CH) (3)
62 Yuki Bhambri (62)
94 N. Sriram Balaji (74)
99 Vijay Sundar Prashanth (83)
109 Anirudh Chandrashekhar (87)
115 Arjun Kadhe (107)
117 Saketh Myneni (98)
128 Niki Kaliyanda Poonacha (CH) (157)
130 Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan (94)
133 Rithvik Choudary Bollipalli (CH) (173)
154 Ramkumar Ramanathan (176)

So, we have 11 in top 200. The ones who have made progress in first quarter are Niki and Rithvik.

Next week, 9 out of 11 are playing at difference places around the world. #1 Rohan at Monto Carlo, #2 Yuki at Madrid Challenger, #3 Balaji at Sarasota Challenger, US, # 4 VSP at Croatia challenger ( with different partner this week with his regular partner #5 Anirudh taking a break this week), # 6 Arjun along with #9 Jeevan and #7 Niki and #10 Rithvik are playing in Mexico challenger and #7 Saketh at Busan Challenger, Korea.

Anirudh and RamK taking a break.