India lack good domestic events: Ramesh Krishnan
1 April 2015 1:00 AM GMT
A legend in his own right, Ramesh had guided India to the finals of the 1987 Davis Cup after beating Australia in the semifinals at Sydney.
Asked about the lack of good Indian players, he said: “Those times were different. At that time, Indian tennis circuit was an important part of world circuit. We had good competitions every 3-4 months, it didn’t cost you so much money but now what has happened is all the competition has moved to Europe and so Europe is benefiting so much where everything is happening in their backyard. So for an Indian child to come through they have to travel further which gets a lot more expensive. The sooner you have more competitions in your own backyard, it gives the children a chance to fine-tune.
“We had excellent competition at home then. Also, the Europeans only were playing part of the year, in the winter months they would not play,” explained Ramesh, who won the Wimbledon and French Open junior titles in 1979 and was ranked the No. 1 junior player in the world once. He was here for the signing of a MoU between All India Tennis Association (AITA) and French Tennis Federation (FFT) and launch of the ‘Rendezvous a Roland Garros’, a junior tournament which offers a wild-card for the 2015 French Open junior event in Paris.
Asked about the lack of good Indian players, he said: “Those times were different. At that time, Indian tennis circuit was an important part of world circuit. We had good competitions every 3-4 months, it didn’t cost you so much money but now what has happened is all the competition has moved to Europe and so Europe is benefiting so much where everything is happening in their backyard. So for an Indian child to come through they have to travel further which gets a lot more expensive. The sooner you have more competitions in your own backyard, it gives the children a chance to fine-tune.
“We had excellent competition at home then. Also, the Europeans only were playing part of the year, in the winter months they would not play,” explained Ramesh, who won the Wimbledon and French Open junior titles in 1979 and was ranked the No. 1 junior player in the world once. He was here for the signing of a MoU between All India Tennis Association (AITA) and French Tennis Federation (FFT) and launch of the ‘Rendezvous a Roland Garros’, a junior tournament which offers a wild-card for the 2015 French Open junior event in Paris.
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