NEW DELHI: Indian tennis legend Ramesh Krishnan on Tuesday 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. “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.
Ramesh still follows tennis a lot and he considers Roger Federer as the best player in the world.
“Federer is the best now. But in clay I feel Bjorn Borg and Rafael Nadal are the best,” he said. (PTI)
