The Hindu : Indians will have to pull up their socks

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Mar 01, 2004

Sport

Sport - Tennis

Indians will have to pull up their socks

By Vijay Parthasarathy

HOME TURF: Vinod Sridhar (left) and Vijay Kannan, the Tamil Nadu lads, seem quite pleased that the ITF caravan has moved to their hometown, Chennai. — Photo: M. Moorthy

CHENNAI, FEB. 29. The main draw matches of the $10,000 TNTA-ITF Futures tennis tournament begin from Monday at the Nungambakkam Stadium.

Meanwhile, not even their most optimistic fans — and this includes biased fathers and mothers shedding copious tears in the stands, largely out of a misplaced sense of loyalty — would label the Indian players' show in the Delhi leg of the Futures last week, as spectacular.

Certainly, Mustafa Ghouse and Vishal Uppal played well to clinch the doubles title, and Vinod Sridhar might consider himself a little unlucky to have lost a close first-round match after a third set tie-break, against Ukrainian Orest Tereshchuk.

However, the others will have to improve dramatically if they are to entertain hopes of challenging the likes of the top-seeded Bulgarian, Todor Enev.

And it is disheartening when you realise that Rohan Bopanna, who put up the best performance among the local lot by reaching the quarterfinals, is actually coming off an arm injury that kept him out of action for nearly two months. Bopanna, whose career-best ranking is 306, currently finds himself hovering around 380.

But you hardly need to refer to the latest ATP statistics to realise that a wide chasm exists between India's top five or six tennis players — including Prakash Amritraj and Bopanna — and those ranked just a notch below them.

In Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi, the country has a former world No. 1 doubles combination to brag about.

But equally, several of the country's "top" players sport a world ranking that could easily pass off as the four-digit number on your car's license plate. And that holds good for both the singles and the doubles.

The lanky, right-handed Bopanna, who is known for his big serve, says he has recovered from a mild stress fracture on his serving arm.

"I went full out in Delhi, but my serve was rusty and the accuracy was missing," he said.

Incidentally, Bopanna, seeded third here, will play his doubles partner, Vijay Kannan, in the first round of the singles draw.

"We know each other's game very well. In fact, I am going out to practise with him today," Bopanna said.

"But I want to look beyond my performance in this tournament. I'm looking to get match practice to prepare for the Davis Cup away tie against Japan in April."

Enev must count as the favourite to win the title, especially considering the winner at Delhi, Pakistan's Aisam Ul-Haq Quereshi, will not be playing here. Sandwiched between Enev and Bopanna is Orest Tereschchuk of Ukraine, a semifinalist last week.

In the doubles event, Alexey Kedriouk of Kazakhstan and Tereschchuk are seeded No 1, while Ghouse and Uppal are second. Bopanna and Kannan are seeded just below them.

Four Indians — Vishal Punna, Somdev Dev Verman, Jaco Mathew and Kamala Kannan — have been given wild cards for the singles event. Nitin Kirtane is currently fighting his way through the qualifiers for a place in the main-draw.

The singles title winner will receive prize money of $1300, while the doubles champions will make $630. The winners in both, the singles and doubles, will also walk away with 12 ATP points, while the semifinalists will earn eight points.

The results: Ajay Selvaraj (Ind) bt Stanley Sarpanich (USA) 6-1, 7-6 (7-3); Anuwat Dalodom (Tha) bt Siddharth Hande (Ind) 6-2, 6-0; Kedar Tembe (Ind) bt Suresh Kumar (Ind) 6-2, 6-0; Shrevansh Sacher (Ind) bt Rafique Paruti (Ind) 6-2, 6-3.

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