INTERVIEW WITH KARTI P CHIDAMBARAM, CHAIRMAN, TOURNAMENT ORGANISING COMMITTEE, ATP CHENNAI OPEN AND VICE PRESIDENT, AITA

2nd January 2012 - Tennis India Magazine

Q: You being a congress politician, many of the tennis fans, readers of Tennis India Magazine would like to know when your interest and association with tennis started ?  What had driven you to tennis? At some point of your career did you ever think that you want to be professional tennis player ? Karti P Chidambaram:  My primary ambition in life was to be a professional tennis player.  Of course I played competitive tennis, I played tennis in the Indian circuit as junior, then played college tennis in America and then in England.  So I have been associated with tennis for about 30 years now.  I started playing in 1981 and competed till 1995.  So I have been associated pretty much in all formats of Tennis.  First as a player here in the junior circuit, then as college player in America then I have played the ITF 'Futures and Challengers'.  After being associated as a player I came back and I got associated with the federation here in the state level initially and now at the National level and of course now I head the organizing committee of this tournament and also I head the committee for Davis Cup.  I am quite involved in the junior tennis by raising money, funding players and lot of the players who have been given wild card here are the players whom I have spotted, nurtured and continued to look after.  I will exchange everything in my life to have a career as a tennis player but I couldn't do perhaps as a tennis player and I lived through the dream of other players and being part of the establishment. Q: As the Chairman of tournament organising committee of ATP Chennai open and Vice President AITA, you played a key role in ensuring that South Asia's only ATP Tour event remains in Chennai for the 17th year in succession this time.  What are your comments on ATP Chennai Open popularizing tennis in our country? Karti P Chidambaram: I don't know whether Chennai Open itself popularizes the sport.  You got to understand that tennis is the largest Individual Sport in the world and it is widely played in India as well but it is now played by everybody in all economic status but not in the grassroot as Cricket is.  There are still lot of entry barriers but the fact that we are able to showcase world class players at home atmosphere definitely helps popularizing the sport but if you ask me that having one event of this nature is enough to popularize the sport then my answer is 'no' but what really would popularize the sport is to have superstars from India but unfortunately we don't have many tennis superstars.  We have good players but not great players.  But if there are great players coming from India and winning grandslams and are constantly in the news in the international arena that would spur interest to a greater level. Q: You have rightly twitted recently that “35% of top 100 ATP Tennis Players come from Spain, France and Germany.  We need to work with these countries to up our Tennis".  What are AITA's, and various state associations plan to get more and more upcoming players to take up professional tennis in a developing country of ours? Karti P Chidambaram: You see, one of the primary drawbacks I find in India is that we don't have great coaches.  We have coaches who can look after the player upto the age of 16 but we lack coaches to convert a 16-year-old into a professional in 5 years and make the player playing in professional circuit.  So that is why we atleast in TNTA having been sending out players constantly to Spain and Germany to train and all the players are being given wild cards in the circuits there.  They have been sent to Sanchez-Casal academy in Spain and Waske Schuttler Tennis Academy in Germany.  We need to definitely develop a core brand of coaches who can convert a good junior into a professional player and still we haven't seen that and for that to happen they need to travel the world and see what's happening in tennis.  Tennis has changed dramatically, the physical mental aspects of tennis have changed a lot. The other thing we lack is that there are no enough tournaments in India at the ITF 10K and 15K Challenger levels.  So you have to go out of India to play these tournaments.  If there are many such tournaments in India, then the players will gain the basic ITF points in India and then they can go out and that's been proven in the case of Jeevan Neduncheziyan.  We had 4 tournaments and he won 2 tournaments and he got some points and he is already in top 500 in the world.  In a country like Spain, you can play a professional tournament every week.  We need to have a minimum of 25 to 30 tournaments in India at the ITF 10K, 15K and 50K level and that would definitely help to change the equation.  We are trying to but it's not easy to find sponsorships for tennis.  I think Cricket takes up a disproportionate share of resources.  If companies and corporates branch away from Cricket and look at Tennis then definitely we can make a dent.  On an average it costs about USD 50,000 per year to support a player on the international scene.  It's not glamorous to support a 15 or 16 year old but you need to support continuously for 3 to 5 years before we can make any impact.  I wish more corporates come forward to fund talented players because most of them come from families who can't afford the yearly cost of the player. Rapid fire with Karti P Chidambaram Favourite Men's Player of all time John McEnroe Favourite Men's Player – Current Rafael Nadal Favourite Women's Players of the past Steffi Graf Favourite Women's Players – Current Kim Clijsters Favourite Tournament Wimbledon Favourite city for tennis vacation London Favourite surface to watch Grass Best tennis moment of your past Winning my first tournament at Savannah, Georgia, U.S. in 1986 when I was 15 years old. Which other sports do you like apart from Tennis? I follow many sports.  I follow Cricket obviously.  I follow tennis primarily but also a bit of chess as well.  I am the President of Bowling Federatin of India so I follow Bowling as well. What is your message for promising your Indian players? You have to work really hard.  I think it is easier to be an IIT gold medallist than to be a professional tennis player.  Parents must realize that it take great sacrifice to be a tennis player.  Tennis is a lonely sport and you need to have tremendous family support as well.  Not necessary financially but emotionally the support of the family is necessary.  In a team sport you have the comfort zone of the team and teammates whereas tennis is very lonely.  You need to have lot of support from the family in order to be a tennis player and its tremendous hard work.  If you are not in top 100, you don't get recognised anywhere.  As I said it is harder to be a tennis champion than is to be an IIT engineer.