Indian Davis Cup captain Mahesh Bhupathi expects the Indian tennis contingent to return with a bagful of medals from the upcoming Jakarta Asian Games.
Bhupathi, who attended the launch function of the Inspire Institute of Sport (IIS) here, stated, “We’ve always come back with a bagful of medals from the Asian Games. It will be the same case this time. We are going with a full strength team, except Yuki [Bhambri], who will miss the event. Ramkumar [Ramanathan] and Prajnesh [Gunneswaran] are playing really well, and so are Leandar [Paes] and Rohan [Bopanna] in doubles. I’m expecting many medals.”
Bhambri, India’s best singles player and winner of two bronzes at the 2014 Incheon Games, has picked the U.S. Open over making the trip to Jakarta.
In general, competing for the country trumps making the big bucks at a Grand Slam event, Bhupathi said. “I think playing for India is a big priority. This holds true especially for this Asian Games because guys like Ramkumar, Sumit [Nagal] and Prajnesh are all missing the U.S. Open qualifiers in order to play in the Asian Games. You guys know how much money they are leaving on the table by not playing the U.S. Open qualifiers,” he said.
The multiple-time Grand Slam winner is also happy with the state of Indian women’s tennis, with Ankita Raina (World No. 187) and Karman Kaur Thandi (197) both doing well.
Next step
“We have two girls in the top-200, and they will hope to take the next step and get into the top-100 in the next 12-18 months. These are exciting times, because for a long period, there was no one after Sania (Mirza). Both Ankita and Karman have big potential,” Bhupathi said.
Asked if there are enough top-level tournaments held in India, Bhupathi replied, “If you are good enough as a player, you will make it, no matter where the tournaments are held. You want to make it easier by holding 40 tournaments in India a year, but that should not be the goal, because the player will not win when he/she goes abroad.
If you want to make it to the top-100, you must beat the Europeans in Europe and the North Americans in North America.”
The 44-year-old was all praise for the Inspire Institute of Sport (IIS), a state-of-the-art facility run by the JSW Group. The inter-disciplinary training institute aims to produce Olympic champions from the nation.
“The athletes who make use of the facilities here are very fortunate. If I had a facility like this to use when I was young, life would have been so much easier.”
