We just witnessed a blasting performance by Roger Federer, top one seed and current king of grass courts went on a roller coaster ride and decimated his opponent Nadal with his winners and serve's to take away the 5th Wimbledon title in a row adding one more to his belt. Also Venus williams, elder of williams sisters made another mark in the history books by claiming her 4th Wimbledon title coming out from hibernation mode being seeded as 23rd in the world.
After watching these matches for many years, one question keeps boggling my mind. Why don't we see not many tennis players from India or China which are the highest populous nations in the world?!
Tennis, yet another energetic sport that pulls attention and attracts many around the world and glues them to television during grand slams titles. With 4 major championships happening every year to entertain the fans, tennis is one of few sport which brings out real talent from an individual to spotlight the best. There are other leagues, opens or tournaments which takes place around the world and also in our metro cities.
But it doesn't seems to be one of the popular sport with die hard fans like cricket in our country. In fact, its been creating some good impulses around youngsters especially past couple of years. A new generation of fanfare starting to whirl around and follow this sport closely after Sania's Mirza came on board taking the center stage winning some open titles and adding to her crown.
It's getting more visibility and attention nowadays because of the new fan-fare. But its always been a familiar and well known paradigm way before Sania's time. It was way back when I was doing my schooling. I hear lot about Vijay Amirtaraj & Ramesh Krishna who shinned as limelight of Indian Tennis. During those times, doordharshan used to report about their feat in tennis in the news.
Then came, Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi. New generation tennis players adding synergy with their young blood. They been on the center stage since then for quite some time with some victories in Davis cup and other opens playing as singles and partners. But they never had any luck to get the Grand slam titles and taste the essence. Its always been a unreachable feat for our Indians.
With only few people who can be finger numbered to come out of the country to be successful in this sport. It puts us on a uncomfortable spot comparing to other small countries. I even had tough time answering questions by my american collegues. They ask "Why don't I see not many indians in tennis being a populous country?"
If you look at the other side like USA or France, Tennis is a very well known sport and its been taught and trained in almost all the schools. There are tennis courts all around the neighborhood and cities which has easy access to anybody. I even got my hands on the racket and tennis balls, partnered with my colleagues, trying to learn this solo act which has more technical aspect to it.
So what exactly his holding others back to try and triumph this world class tennis ?! It even has good prize money, lot of media coverage and much more. Here are few things which I feel might be
1. Cost
Cost to buy a Racket is not expensive at all. It might cost Rs.1000 or Rs.2000 equal to a cricket bat for one time to get started. Tennis balls are all over the place nowadays. We started playing cricket instead of tennis. So that won't be problem to get hold few. I feel the only problem is hiring a trainer or getting on to a training regiment/facility which might cost fortune sometimes. There is no place to start or practice since not many public schools have tennis courts too. There comes the first hurdle.
2. Training
I do know that there are one or two tennis academies exists in metro-cities but they still are expensive for the middle class family. Only few people could afford to get in there. Hiring trainer is not possible since we don't have big pool of trainers to do personal training. Also there are not many training facilities or tennis court in and around cities to atleast just get started. Only few exists in luxury areas which have limited access to public. So there is a scarcity of training courts and trainers.
3. We tend to relay on the team effort
I feel, this one plays a major role in our mental aspect. I didn't want to speak for all. But I always felt that we tend to lean on others for support especially in sports. We like team sports better than individual sport. We don't want to face the failure alone. We don't want to push hard and challenge ourselves to work alone for successful except its for money. We tend avoid stretching our limits when it comes to sport. We are more comfortable contributing as a team member than be a team itself.
4. More technical than any other sport.
Tennis is one of the most technical sport I ever seen. You have all kinds of returns. You gotta use both backend and forehand to really play a good match. Its too technical for most of us and tough to master unless you have a good trainer to guide it. You have to build your adherline to play for 3-5 hrs. You have to have good physique to run around and beat the hell out of the opponent.
5. Importance to Individual Sports
I don't think, we are trained to give importance to sport acitivities. I think its mainly because of the school system we are acustomted too. We have PT classes twice a week and we do nothing but play team sport or just pass on the time. I ever seen schools giving more importance to Individual sports like they do it here. Also there is not a lot of after school programs to encourage kids to learn things.
Taking above reasons into account, I surely see the reason why we don't see too many players from our country. Its the basic nesseccites which we are missing for us to perform well in the sports department. It should start changing in every schools in every state to give importance to sports activities and make it a compulsory act for a student to take on specialized sport and excel it.
I know we all have the WILL to do it, but just finding the WAY is just isn't that easy.
