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A proud father with noble thoughts

Principal Correspondent

‘Daddy Cool’ on his daughters and poverty alleviation

Bangalore: Tall, lumbering and with a bit of a slouch, Richard Williams moved on the sidelines of the tennis courts inside the KSCA Clubhouse complex here on Sunday morning.

His eyes were riveted on daughters Venus and Serena as they moved about like quicksilver. Often his creased face broke into a smile and after the training session, the Williams sisters were briefly lost in ‘Big Daddy’s’ embrace.

It was the first day in India for the Williams family as Venus and Serena geared up for the Bangalore Open commencing here on Monday and the father was a happy man.

Later, walking into the sprawling Raj Bhavan prior to the draw ceremony, Williams paused when he came close to the bust of Mahatma Gandhi. “This is my first visit to India. I just saw the statue of Gandhi. Great man, he came to Africa and then got back to his country and struggled for independence.

“I still see some struggle here, the struggle against poverty. Driving back to the hotel, we saw people living on the sidewalks, six to seven people sharing food. In the place I come from — Compton — it’s a different struggle. You have people blowing each others head off; thankfully here there are no shoot-outs.

Plans for a programme

“I want to do something against this poverty and we want to launch a programme in association with the Government here and with Vijay Amritraj. We want to get some funds from America and I will come again to follow up on that. We want to go beyond tennis,” Williams said.

When the talk veered to the sisters and the hard road they took, the father said “I am a master planner and I believe that if you have a proper plan you can do what you want. I knew what road my daughters had to take and in the kind of place I come from, there was a bit of a struggle but I always look at the hard times as easy times.

“I knew my hardworking daughters would do well especially in a country where kids from rich backgrounds are lazy, where their parents take care of everything, where they don’t even have to wash a dish, where they may play a round in a court inside Beverly Hills,” Williams said. And what does he think of Indian tennis? “I do know a bit of Indian tennis history especially from the times of the Amritraj brothers. There is talent out here...”

And then the sentence was broken mid-stream as Vijay Amritraj called out for Williams to the dais where the draw ceremony was scheduled. “I do want to see more of India,” muttered Williams as he walked away.

Williams also said that Serena had not fully recovered from a hamstring injury that she suffered during Wimbledon last year. “Serena needs a long break, maybe six months off the circuit to give her body some rest.”

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