Junior Circuits Abroad for Indian Kids...

[XYZ]

It is true that if you can afford to play in all European and Amreican circuits, your standard will improve. But where is the money to do this on a regular basis?
Some of the kids talked about in the article are directly under the coach Chandrasekharan in NTA. What is he or AITA doing about to get these rectified. If the guys are not physically fit the coach should take 100 % responsibilty as they are under him - it does not require the players to be sent to Europe or America.
Tha article also critizes about the players using US universities and then fading. The playeers go there since they get free coaching and best facilities to train. If they can afford it they will all go train at the best academies abroad and travel the world with coaches / trainers and be a pro w/o attending college.
As long as the talents don't get the financial support they need to get to the higher level, we can all sit and write articles in media and criticize the players.

[Florian Buechting]

I had talked for a couple of years about sending a tyeam of a few kids every year to the u14 and u16 tournaments in Europe, definitely the u14 level.

I got a message from Ramesh Krishnan. He will travel with his younger daughter Nandita to three tournaments in Holland, one in Germany and one in France at the European Under 14 tour you mentioned. I will try to meet him, most possibly in Holland...

Yours,
Florian

[jaydeep]

Thaks Florian for sharing this news ... So we r hoping some inside inputs from u on it ...

Jaydeep.

[arjun2761]

In some ways it is good that our juniors get easy points in the Indian and Asian circuit so that they have less trouble getting entry into higher grade tournaments in Europe and US.
The part that is not managed well is that once they see the higher level of competition, the improvement that should be caused by playing against higher level of opposition does not seem to occur as often as one would like. Of course, this requires hard work by the players themselves as well as their coaches, so coach of the NTA should be a part of the solution. He should come up with a skills training and fitness regimen that can make our players world class. Of course, not all players will follow the regimen but at least some of them should.

[Dhruv]

:puke:

There are high expectations.But all three were knocked out in the first round by players ranked lower than them. Big-stage fright? Feet of clay?The real story is they were never that good anyway.

Who the $%#@ does this Anupam think he/she is to say that kind of crap?

I think you are missing the main point of his article which is that Indian juniopr players have inflated rankings compared to the Europeans juniors and can only improve further if they play regularly on the European circuit rather than beating up on the Asian circuit. I don't see anything wrong fundamentally with that.

You are taking exception to a line or two but basically what he is trying to me IMO is trying to goad people in action faster (i.e take players on the European circuit earlier) rather than purposefully knocking down the players in question. It is unfortunate but if in most media if you write sensible logical articles hardly anyone reads it much less takes action on it. JMHO.

[jayakris]

No, I did get the point he had. Which was to reinforce some of the age-old ideas about the Indian athletes. It paints the three boys as not players who don't take their physical pfitness seriously etc. That was uncalled for.

The line I quoted was clearly way over the line. He thinks this is going to help the kids, to put them down like this?

These kinds of trite article have been written way too many times. It does not gaud anybody into action. He did not give anything new..

The crap about Indian players doing so well in the juniors and not doing well later is total BS. This kind of crap comes from reporters who don't even realize that junior rankings make sense only after about 7 or 8 months into the year, and more importantly that they are out of only the players who tyurn 18 abourt ONE year (as opposed to say 6 to 9 years worth of players in the pros).

Multiply the rank after US Open juniors by 6 to 8 and a player getting to that point did about exactly what he/she is expected to do in the seniors. Except Leander, I think most of our players have done that.

Sunil Kumar was around 40ish, and he seems to be going somewhere in that range. In fact somebody like Harsh Mankad who was only about #65 or something, has done better than expected. Prakash has done better than expected. Karan was around #20 or so by US Open and there is no indication that he will not go into top-200 or 150 .. Then there is Sania who has done way better than any of her junior ranks would show (had trouble cracking top-25!).

Those like Fazal and Srinath were not at all at the high end of junior ranks. To mention them and put them down as "failures" also does not sit well with me. These are player who put in effort despite whatever little support they all got. Does this guy know that Uzma Khan was hardly in the top-50 in the juniors? ..

These reporters should check how "top" juniors from other countries, including the European countries have done. We have not done particualrly bad. Check out the record of countries like Britian who have spent a ton of money on their kids.

I don't like cliche stories. There was nothing insightful in that article. Had he even said that the players should be sent abroad when they are 12 through 16 to Europe, or had he said that players should be forced to go into an 8 week physical training program with a very capable (up-to-date) trainer at the end of the year for them to be considered for AITA travel funds, etc, those are real solutions. Just parroting well-known trite lines on the problems does not help anybody. This reporter has only managed to put down some kids like Jeevan who are trying to work hard. Thank God it was in a fish-wrap newspaper and not one read by too many people.

Jay

[Insider]

The line I quoted was clearly way over the line. He thinks this is going to help the kids, to put them down like this?

It should.

If such comments do not make Jeevan et al want to work harder to prove their critics wrong, they do not have the right mentality.

[Florian Buechting]

Just some updates about our Juniors: Vivek Shokeen and Sanam Singh are at the Offenbach Grade 1 in Germany at the moment. Like I told you, it might be quite tough for me to go there, I am sorry (especially I will be at the Braunschweig Challenger next week). The Offenbach main draw is not published so far, they were playing the qualies today.

The Gerry Weber Juniors Office sent me a mail that Sandhya Nagaraj will play the Halle Juniors next week.

Yours,
Florian

[Florian Buechting]

Vivek and Sanam are playing in Offenbach this morning. Sorry that I am unable to go there. They will play the first and second match starting at 0930 am local time (in about one hour). Vivek will play Paul Puscasu from Romania (#222), Sanam faces German Marcus Meigel (#296) afterwards.

[Florian Buechting]

I just called the Offenbach tournament office for the results of today. Here are the Grade 1 results, first round singles (Sanaam and Vivek are first seeded in doubles and have a first round bye):

Singh def. Meigel 63 57 62
Shokeen def. Puscasu 76 64

You will find the tournament website at www.itfoffenbach.com (but no main draw singles available so far).

Yours,
Florian

[jaydeep]

Good start by Vivek and Sanam ... Both had tough matches and both managed to win.

Thanks Florian for updates.

Jaydeep.

[knarayen]

T. Chandrasekaran, coaching director at the National Tennis Academy, concurs.“The ranks are based on points from various tournaments in our region and do not necessarily reflect their standard,” he tells Mumbai Mirror.“Real tennis is played in Europe and America and their boys have very strong fundamentals and have good technique. Our boys have a long way to go. They need to work much harder and also fine tune their technique. They can’t be content with results in Asia.”
(anupam.pratihary@timesgroup.com)
http://www.mumbaimirror.com/mmpaper.asp?sectid=6&articleid=65200523581515652005235729125

Knowing Chandra as I do, I think his words were meant to encourage, not to discourage. But the rest of the article takes his words and twists them out of context to drive home a completely different point than what Chandra intended. As a player and coach, Chandra would never ever put down his own players in preference to those from other countries. If I were Chandra, I would sue the Mirror, but he is not the suing type.

The comments about technique and fitness are mostly correct. This has always been the crux of the issue. Technique on serve, for example. is rarely taught correctly in India, as we have noted previously regarding Sania's serve. Coaching technique is very advanced in the USA and Europe and I myself have learned a great deal from interactions with coaches here.

Another area that is lacking in Indian players is adequate training in patterns around the transition game (transition from defence to offence and vice versa). Coaches here in the USA spend a lot of time with their key players in this area, once they have proven themselves at the Championship level. In fact, some specialists like Allen Fox have worked on the defence-to-offence transition with many players, helping otherwise great groundstrokers become highly-capable volleyers as well.

Hopefully I will get a chance to meet with Chandra in the next few months and discuss some of these issues with him.

Cheers,
Krish Narayan USPTA

[Florian Buechting]

Sanam will play the first match on court W3 tomorrow (sound like a very outer court to me, it is just one of two matches on this court...) against Belic (CRO, 186), Vivek plays the second match on court M (looks like some sort of centre court) against German Schmid (#194).

They will also play the doubles together, fourth match on court 1. Their opponents are Klein/Lindner (very German names, but playing for Australia). As Hesh will not play tomorrow, I might even be able to go there. Hope a good friend of mine I will visit now will persuade not to do it - I am still very tired of the yesterday Halle day and would have to leave Clausthal at 5:30 something to be in time for Sanam's match....

Yours,
Florian

[Florian Buechting]

Short update: Belic bt Singh 63 64

As I wrote in the Hesh thread, I was unfortunately unable to go there....

Yours,
Florian

[Florian Buechting]

.. and Vivek beat Schmid 64 46 76(5)