The Hindu : Sport / Tennis : Bhupathi pleased with kids’ enthusiasm

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Bhupathi pleased with kids’ enthusiasm

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: Ten-time Grand Slam champion, Mahesh Bhupathi, was pleased with the enthusiasm of the kids and the sound basics that he got to witness in the tennis clinics at three places over two days in the Capital.

Emphasising that fitness was the key for the juniors to break into the big league in the professional circuit, Bhupathi said that his programme around the country, spread over 49 centres, was focusing a lot on the aspect. He assured that experts were being flown from South Africa and Australia among others to meet the needs.

Bhupathi said that it was important to broad-base the game so that quality would come out of quantity. He was happy with the fundamentals in about 95 per cent of the kids that he saw at the Siri Fort Sports Complex on Wednesday as he commended the Team Tennis coaches.

Bhupathi had conducted clinics at the Ryan International School and Friends Club apart from Siri Fort Sports Complex. He said that he would continue to guide rather than get into full-time coaching as there was a lot on his plate already.

Praise for Somdev

The former World No. 1 doubles star had words of praise for Somdev Dev Varman who has been camping in Romania recently to get acclimatised to the conditions on clay for the Davis Cup World Group play-off to be staged from September 19 to 21.

Bhupathi did stress that it would have been ideal to have nominated five players for the tie, but had no hesitation in admitting that the top two players, Prakash Amritraj and Somdev Dev Varman, were the ideal choice to face the Romanians, ahead of his occasional doubles partner Rohan Bopanna.

The All India Tennis Association had tried to take Bopanna as the fifth player a few days ago after informing him earlier that he had been dropped for lack of results in singles. Bopanna excused himself saying that he had already made his plans to compete in Bangkok around the same time.

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