Events can hardly be dull when a suave and champion-entertainer like Vijay Amritraj is around.
Successive generations have applauded and admired his tennis play and thereafter his remarkable incisive analysis of Grand Slam events .
The 61-year-old who once beat the legendary Rod Laver in the US Open at Flushing Meadows and has won 27 Davis Cup singles and 18 doubles matches has been part and parcel of the game for over four decades now.
On Wednesday he launched the Champions Tennis League 2015 with hope and fervour at a fine-dining restaurant named Blue Frog in Lower Parel. What made the launch more eventful was the fabulous wit he brought in the course of conducting the draft for six franchise teams from Hyderabad, Chandigarh, Mumbai, Raipur, Nagpur and a sixth team that will be either from Bengaluru, Chennai or Pune.
The IPL has its brilliant auctioneer in Richard Madley from Wales holding the gavel; but dressed in a perfectly fitting suit, an impeccable Vijay took upon himself to conduct the draft featuring 24 players and floored one and all.
The CTL is his brainchild with the objective to bring world class tennis players to India in the category of legends (either Grand Slam winners or runner-ups), top-notch ATP and WTA players and also some bright Indian players.
The draft ceremony was a short programme, and one was not surprised to see Vijay rattle off facts of tennis players from memory. But a happening that set off a guffaw was when first-timer Nagpur picked Alex Corretja, the 1998 and 2001 French Open runner-up.
“Well, If I was in your place I would first buy a Spanish dictionary,” quipped Vijay, pointing that the team from Maharashtra has two Spanish speaking players; the first being Feliciano Lopez.
Then introducing the team from Chandigarh, ‘Punjab Marshalls’, Vijay could not resist telling the audience that “Chandigarh is the place to go for partying”.
Quite obviously Vijay had a rollicking time in Chandigarh last year, shaking a leg to bhangra tunes with Gurpreet ‘Kiki’ Singh. But after giving his due to the famous Hyderabadi biryani, one heard him waxing lyrical saying “buttttter…chicken” looking at the Punjab franchise team. He ended it all saying: “My wife did not recognise me (after his visits to Chandigarh).”
There was some computer glitch initially when the operators could not slot the players chosen by the franchise in a particular box, and the immediate wisecracks from Vijay could not be missed when he said, India… IT capital….technology. All in good humour though and Vijay as he always does, revealed the lighter side of his personality. It made the draft definitely exciting.
