The Hindu : Sport / Tennis : I will miss Sania: Vijay Amritraj

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I will miss Sania: Vijay Amritraj

Kalyan Ashok

BANGALORE: The Indian tennis legend, Vijay Amritraj said on the eve of the Bangalore Open here that he is surely going to miss Sania and felt that she should have played here, but conceded that, “one must respect her wishes, she has her own reasons.”

On the sidelines of the draw ceremony at Raj Bhavan on Sunday, Vijay said: “If you don’t have Vishy Anand playing in a big chess tournament in India, as a fan you will miss him. The same goes for Prakash Padukone in badminton in our times. So as a fan I am going to miss watching Sania in Bangalore. I have always enjoyed watching her play.”

Missing a good chance

Vijay felt that Sania would have immensely gained if she had played this Tier Two event as she had better chances of beating bigger players at home than anywhere else.

“I always felt that that when you have major events in India it’s good for you as a player to play it mainly because you have a chance of faring better against the big players when you’re playing them at home,” said Vijay.

Turning to the Bangalore Open, Vijay said it was great that KSLTA had upgraded the event to Tier II.

“It means that we are going to have a top field and I congratulate Sunder Raju and his team for putting up a tremendous effort to get this show on and getting absolutely classy players.

“I also thank the Karnataka Government for supporting the event in a big way and I hope, its association continues.”

Can pose trouble

Though Indian wild cards like Shikha Oberoi and Isha Lakhani, are up against fancied rivals, Vijay pointed out that a player like Shikha knows the conditions here.

“She has played here before and knows the conditions and if she cuts down on her errors and plays a solid game, she can hurt a few,” said Vijay.

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