India’s Davis Cup captain Mahesh Bhupathi doesn’t mince words, especially when it comes to the way forward for Indian tennis.
The 44-year-old dismissed the idea of hosting more tournaments in India in order to give more exposure for juniors, saying, “I always believe that if you are good enough then you will come through. If you want to make it easy for the players by hosting 40 tournaments in India then do it. But when they go to Europe or other countries, they are found wanting.”
Further elaborating his point, Bhupathi said, “We had two ATP challengers last year. Yuki [Bhambri] won one and Sumit [Nagal] won one. It is good for their confidence, but if you want to be in top-100 you have to beat the Europeans in Europe and Americans in America.”
Bhupathi was addressing reporters on the sidelines of a function organised to launch JSW’s Inspire Institute for Sports in Vijaynagar on Wednesday.
While the Indian men have started their march towards being in the top-100, Bhupathi believes Karman Kaur Thandi and Ankita Raina have the potential to break that barrier in the coming few years. “We have two players in top-200 and that is really good,” he said. “We haven’t had anyone in top-100 since Sania Mirza and I hope they can take the next step to be in top-100.”
Speaking about Indian tennis squad’s chances at the upcoming Asian Games, Bhupathi said India was always favourite to win medals in the continental event and the full-strength squad is sure to come back with a bag full of medals from Indonesia.
The multiple-time Grand Slam champion was all praise for the likes of Ramkumar Ramanathan and Prajnesh Gunneswaran for skipping the US Open qualifiers to play the Asian Games. “You know how much money they are putting on the table by missing the qualies. But I am happy that they chose to play for the country,” he added.