Tennis players tense as meets vanish from calendar

pune, October 25

The Indian tennis players are a jittery lot these days as the number of tournaments — both Challengers and Futures — has fallen to alarming levels, making their life tougher on an already demanding circuit.

In the 2015 season, India had hosted 19 men’s ITF Futures and 16 women’s ITF events but this year the men have got only six tournaments so far while the ongoing $10,000 event in Pune is only the third tournament of the season for the women.

India hosted four ATP Challengers in 2015, but this season only two have been held - Delhi Open and Pune Challenger — in eight months.

It has severely impacted the progress of players who are outside top-200 in singles. Almost every player competing on the circuit is deeply concerned since in the absence of home events, they are forced to travel outside India for competitions, burning a big hole in their pocket. “It played a major role financially. Without any sponsor and coming from a middle class family it was difficult for me. Playing leagues in Germany in the summer helped me a bit as I used it (the money) for travelling,” says N Sriram Balaji.

Newly crowned national champion Vishnu Vardhan said over the years the country has seen an increase in the number of tournaments but the reduction this year has made the job tough. “To improve my ranking I had to travel to Egypt, Astana, Uzbekistan, Zimbabwe and Thailand this year. It did work out expensive for me,” he said. “If we had a similar schedule as last year, I could have expected to finish the year with a higher ranking,” he added. — PTI