When the $50,000 KPIT ATP Challenger tennis tournament gets underway in Pune on Monday, it will be a step in the right direction for Indian tennis. It will be the fifth Challenger tournament this year. For a country which last hosted one six years ago, having five is a giant leap. Spain, in 2014, accounted for two. Japan, a rising Asian power, has three.
But it betrays a certain inconsistency. For players to climb the ladder, testing their skills against quality opponents, it is necessary to have a pyramid-like structure of tournaments. This involves sufficient $10,000 Futures for entrants, $15,000 events for more ranking points, $50,000 and $100,000 Challengers to get to the doorstep of the ATP tour and finally ATP Tour events themselves.
In India, over the past few years, these have not co-existed. The ATP Chennai Open has been around since 1997 but there were hardly any Challengers. Now when Challengers have sprung up, the $10,000 Futures have dwindled and the $15,000 Futures stagnated. While 2012 saw 17 Futures (15 $10,000 and 2 $15,000), it reduced to 11 (9 and 2) in 2013 and eight in all (including three more to come) in 2014.
Suraj R. Prabodh, a top-ranking junior from Karnataka before he started competing in Futures, said, “We were told there would be enough tournaments. We thought we could play here and our parents could accompany us as we are very young. But now I have to go abroad even to defend last year’s points. I need to travel alone because of the huge costs.” Karnataka, after hosting six Futures in 2012, has hosted none since.
Patchy historyKarnataka State Lawn Tennis Association secretary Sunder Raju conceded that their “history has been patchy,” but said, “Sponsorship is the biggest problem. Finding it is a draining exercise. Associations are not robust enough as office-bearers are honorary. So we are revisiting the whole thing.”
The effect this has on tennis in a country can be clearly gauged. In the 2014 calendar, France had 24 Futures and 10 Challengers. Italy 38 (highest) and 19. France has 19 players in the top-200 and Italy 10.
India has only two in the top-200.
Indian players who took advantage of the Futures in 2012 saw their rankings rise to the 300s. But they stagnated without enough $15,000 Futures in the subsequent years. A winner of a $10,000 tournament gets 18 points, while in a $15,000 tournament, with hospitality and a near similar depth of field, a second-place finish gives 20 points.
Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan, who broke into the 300s in late 2012 and is currently ranked 328, said, “We wouldn’t always want to go into a tournament where only a victory will cap it as a good week. In today’s game there is pressure. It goes unsaid. But nobody would want it at every tournament.”
In recent years even non-traditional tennis countries like Egypt and Turkey have hosted more than 30 Futures a year. While these are privately funded with the local associations having next to no role, they have proved beneficial. As recently as September, Ramkumar Ramanathan, India’s third-best singles player, reached his career-best ranking of 260 after winning back-to-back tournaments in Turkey. This ranking will now give him a direct entry to a Challenger.
Karti P. Chidambaram, vice-president of the Tamil Nadu Tennis Association, which has hosted 15 of the 36 Futures in the past three years, said that there was no fundraising at the AITA level.
Financially unviable“An ITF $10,000 is financially unviable,” he said. “In cricket, the BCCI pumps money from the top. But where is the money here? They need to find a national sponsor who can allot around 250,000 dollars and commit to 25 Futures a year.”
On his part, Anil Khanna, president, All India Tennis Association, insisted India was doing “something remarkable”.
“Last year we had 40 weeks of international tennis (including Road to Wimbledon, Davis Cup). This year we have five Challengers. For three years we have had nine ITF juniors, the fourth highest in the world. In Asia we are among the top three. (But) these tournaments have zero spectator and commercial interests. We want the government to step in and efforts are being made.”
These efforts have to be made quickly. World tennis is increasingly looking at Asia as its next market. Japan’s Kei Nishikori and China’s Li Na have inspired a generation of youngsters. For India to have its own superstar it’s imperative that the structure be set right.
