Indian tennis legend Ramesh Krishnan today said lack of domestic competition is the reason behind the dearth of quality players in the country, adding the sport needs to be taken to the far-flung areas to produce future champions.
A legend in his own right, Ramesh had guided India to the finals of the 1987 Davis Cup after beating Australia in the semifinals at Sydney.
Asked about the lack of good Indian players, he said: "Those times were different. At that time, Indian tennis circuit was an important part of world circuit. We had good competitions every 3-4 months, it didn't cost you so much money but now what has happened is all the competition has moved to Europe and so Europe is benefiting so much where everything is happening in their backyard.
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"So for an Indian child to come through they have to travel further which gets a lot more expensive. The sooner you have more competitions in your own backyard, it gives the children a chance to fine-tune.
"We had excellent competition at home then. Also, the Europeans only were playing part of the year, in the winter months they would not play," explained Ramesh, who won the Wimbledon and French Open junior titles in 1979 and was ranked the No. 1 junior player in the world once.
Son of the legendary Ramanathan Krishnan, Ramesh, who reached three Grand Slam quarter-finals in the 1980s and was ranked world no. 23 in 1985, said: "There are so many other sports which are doing well now. Badminton has been doing well. Every sport has to fight for its participants now. It is an exciting time for Indian sports and tennis has to push and get more and more children involved. It is a healthy competition.
"Lot of the talented ones are going to other sports. I also would like it to go to the smaller areas, tennis is still centered around the major centers like Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata, Bangalore. The way cricket has succeeded in taking the sport to Ranchi or any corner of the county, tennis has to learn from that," added Ramesh, who became India's Davis Cup captain in 2007.
Asked about the current top Indian players such as Somdev Devvarman and Yuki Bhambri, the 53-year-old said: "Somdev was coming along very nicely and I think he had a shoulder injury from which I don't think he has really fully recovered... That is a bit unfortunate.
"Yuki also had a few good wins, so it is a question of enough people pushing and someone will take it higher and higher," he said.
