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We're into the semifinals of this year's Wimbledon and there are still Indians competing. Leander Paes, playing alongside Martina Hingis is in the semi-finals of the mixed doubles while Sania Mirza, also partnering with Hingis will be playing in the women's doubles semi-finals on Friday. Though India might not be making any mark on the singles' circuit at the moment, there is still hope of an Indian picking up a title, 55 years after the first Indian made it to tennis's most prestigious tournament.

His name is Ramanathan Krishnan. Counted among the leading tennis players in 1950s and 1960s, Krishnan started his career at the early age of 13. In 1954, he became the first Asian player to win the boy’s singles title at Wimbledon. After 5 years, he once again played at Wimbledon, but lost in the third round of men’s single title to Alex Olmedo. Later that year, he bagged another men’s single title, beating Australia’s Rod Laver in the final game of Davis Cup. After that, Krishnan never looked back. In 1960, he made the history when he became the first Indian to enter Wimbledon and US Open’s semi-finals twice.

To honor his legendary performance worldwide, Films Division made a short film Krish in 1970, which is based on his tennis career and Krishnan himself narrates the story in an interview with Jimmy Mehta. "I was disappointed Krish," Mehta says, "to see you occupy the captain’s chair at Bangalore and Pune. Why did you do so?” To which, he smiles and replies “Well, it’s a Davis Cup match and I am not fighting here for individual honours and the country comes first.” He also adds “India has produced tennis stars like Vijay Amritraj and Shashi Menon, but why can’t we have many more like them? And that’s where we have failed. We have to catch young talents and train them properly and then only, India will be able to produce many outstanding tennis players”.