BENGALURU: Switzerland is known for its majestic landscape with the snow-clad mountains. For tennis lovers, though, the description may change — the land of Roger Federer. However, the climb to the top of the sport is not easy for players from the country, where temperatures drop to below zero degree celsius during winters. With snow being quite regular during the season, they are forced to train indoors for around three to four months, which makes matters complicated.
Hence, some of the Swiss players, including Johan Nikles and Antoine Bellier, competing at the Bengaluru Open 2 ATP Challenger, train abroad, allowing them access to outdoor facilities throughout the year. The former trains in Spain while the latter has trained in Sweden and France for the last six years or so. “It (weather in my home country and the need for outdoor training) was one of the reasons why I shifted from Switzerland for training.
Sometimes the weather is unfortunately not good for training. Seventy-five percent of the tournaments are played outdoors. Also, in Switzerland, it becomes difficult to train throughout the year. We do not get to practice much outdoors. From November/December to February, there is snow, and it can rain too,” said Bellier, who defeated Sidharth Rawat 4-6, 6-2, 6-4 to move into the quarterfinals of the Challenger event here. Though the federation has some quality indoor facilities, not everyone is able to make use of it as well. “If you have a very good ranking, you don’t pay anything. There are different categories like that, I think,” said Nikles, who has also moved into the quarters after his win over Markos Kalovelonis.
India’s singles players exit
India’s singles journey came to an end with Arjun Kadhe and Rawat losing their respective ties. However, Saketh Myneni and Ramkumar Ramanathan reached the semifinals in the doubles event after their win over Vladyslav Orlov and Kai Wehnelt 6-4, 7-6 (3). N Sriram Balaji and Vishnu Vardhan also secured their last four spots.