Watching Indian players being so easily knocked out of India’s only ATP event being held in Pune is neither a surprise nor a shock. It is an expected result which reflects the woeful lack of tennis talent in the country. For a nation that has had a fair history of outstanding performances and talented individual players parading their skills in the tough, demanding and gruelling international tennis calendar, it is unfortunate that there is no player on the horizon who could give fans hope of a better future ahead.
India may have never been a champion side in the Davis Cup or had a Grand Slam singles winner, but it always had one or two individual players who excelled at the world stage and off and on stunned some of the top players. From the wily touch artiste Ramanathan Krishnan to his equally skillful son Ramesh, India has had players who have performed remarkably well and matched the best in the world.
In Vijay Amritraj, they have had a player who could match the power and strength of the modern tennis player and was once even rated at par with legends like Bjorn Borg and Jimmy Connors. The very fact that India made the Davis Cup finals on three occasions, suggests that it always played above its true strength in a championship that determines who is the best tennis playing nation in the world.
Leander Paes continued that tradition, even winning a medal in the Olympics. Somehow, somewhere India lost out. It is no secret that all these players were products of their individual effort and not the system that is inadequate to train players to international standards.
Ironically, this loss of standing in singles coincided with the rise of India’s strength in the doubles. The plethora of Grand Slam doubles titles that Leander and Mahesh Bhupathi have won made us ignore the harsh reality of India reaching the bottom of tennis hierarchy in the singles and the Davis Cup.
In the heart-warming performances of Sania Mirza, particularly in the doubles, where she too continued to win Grand Slams, India remained in the headlines of the tennis world. Given the fact that women tennis players in India have had a history of poor records and have had to fight against systemic biases, Sania’s rise was a superlative feat in itself, to be admired and lauded.
However, in this euphoria of performances in the doubles, India’s tennis may have suffered in the long run. No doubt one has to be extremely talented to do well in the doubles but it is no secret that the best individual players rarely participate in this format.
Competing in singles is physically too draining for them to take on this responsibility, leaving the field open for second or third rung players to make a mark in it. This is a fact and while we celebrate the doubles win of our players there is no harm in acknowledging this reality as well. It is a sign of maturity that while we praise the best we have, we don’t lose sight of the bigger picture. Otherwise, we will never improve.
I think the lasting impact of Paes-Bhupathi-Sania concentrating solely on doubles has been on the quality of India’s singles play. The generation that has followed them has largely ignored focusing on singles, taking easy recourse of concentrating on doubles. This could be one of the reasons for India struggling to find a player who could come anywhere in even the top 50 of singles. That, in turn, has made it difficult for India to qualify for the World Group in Davis Cup or get a player even into the Grand Slams singles draw.