INDIAN TENNIS AT THE CROSS ROADS

In India sports means it is cricket as it has overshadowed every other sport in the country including hockey, our national sport. But tennis has had a huge following thanks to some exciting players like Ramanathan Krishnan, Vijay Amritraj,Leander Paes, Mahesh Bhupathi and most recently Sania Mirza. These players have brought many laurels to the country and they even went on to excel at the grandslams.But that is history.Now not even a single indian male tennis player is within the top "200" in ATP rankings and Sania is the only Indian in the top 50.The two bandwagons of Indian tennis Leander and mahesh are at the fag end of their carrier, infact they are in their mid 30's and we still want them to play for the country at the olympics. Leander was at his peak of his tennis in singles when he chose doubles. Infact he defeated Pete sampras at the Pilot Pen tennis tournament and he was in the top 100 in ATP rankings. Winning doubles titles with mahesh was a customary till they broke up in 2000. But the main cause for worry is that there aren't much players who would continue their legacy.Players like Rohan Bopanna and Prakash Amritraj have impressed in patches but neither if them are consistent. Its high time that more ATP events are staged in the country so that our youngsters would be able to watch high profile players from close quarters so that they could learn the game better. This is the only way the youngsters could get a taste of what the world of tennis is all about.