Yet another edition of the Aircel Chennai Open has gone by without an Indian player at the business end as Benoit Paire sent Yuki Bhambri home in straight sets in the second round.
The Indian’s exit follows that of Ramkumar Ramanathan and Saketh Myneni, both of whom crashed out in the opening round.
Karti Chidambaram, the vice-president of the TNTA and chairman of the organising committee, during an interaction with the media, rued that the lack of progress by Indian players in singles was disappointing. He wondered about the value of the tournament for them.
The former AITA vice-president echoed Somdev Devvarman views on the national federation failing to support promising prospects.
Karti cited the career of Bhambri, a former World junior No, 1, as an example.
“Yuki is undoubtedly our best player, which he proved after coming back from injury [in his match] against Ramkumar. Why doesn’t he have a coach? He is 24-years-old, what’s stopping the association from calling him and asking him what he needs?”
The TNTA vice-president stressed the importance of having a travelling coach for modern-day tennis players, saying: “Not one player here is travelling without a coach except the Indian guys.”
Not much improvement
Karti, who, personally and through the TNTA, has been backing Ramkumar’s career for the past decade,was not happy with his ward’s progress. “For the potential he showed three years back, he has not improved enough.”
Ramkumar stunned Devvarman in the first round here in 2014 and then reached the quarterfinals last year but has done little to build on those results.
“We have given Ramkumar wildcards for the last three years and there has been criticism that we are making it very easy for the players. Maybe next year he might have to come through qualifying,” said Karti.
With Aircel merging with Reliance, the future of the title sponsor has been under a cloud. But Karti said it is too early to worry about the impact on the tournament before appreciating the role of the State government.
“We have this tournament for so many years and have got bipartisan support for it. We have both private sponsors and government sponsors. This is the best example of a public-private partnership.”
