‘No Indian players at Australian Open 2023’: Somdev Devvarman highlights major concern

Indian tennis legend Somdev Devvarman highlighted a major concern of Indian tennis during a recent media interaction organized, ahead of the Australian Open 2023. During the session, Somdev was asked to shed his thoughts on the stature of tennis in India and also on the fact that no Indians will participate in the season-opening Grand Slam tournament. This will be the first time in six years that no Indian players will represent the country at a Grand Slam tournament.

Meanwhile, speaking to the reporters, Somdev said, “That’s unfortunate. That’s really unfortunate. I don’t remember the last time we haven’t had a single male player inside 300 in the world. So it’s very unfortunate. A couple of things I think we have to address. One is, what are we doing as a nation to develop our young players and even the pros, what are we doing to support them, make sure that we have a fair chance internationally at the ATP-WTA tours, at the slams, at tour events”.

“Whatever it is that we are doing is not good enough”

37-year-old Devvarman, who reached a career-best ranking of No. 70 in men's singles, pointed out that whatever the association is doing is not good enough for Indian tennis.

"Because clearly, whatever it is that we are doing is not good enough. Some people can say it is a matter of time because Sumit (Nagal) is recovering from hip surgery, Ram had the worst singles season since he has turned pro pretty much. Will he get better, yes. Prajlesh (Gunneswaran), can he come back? I don’t know but he is still playing at a very high level, but the question is why are we dependent on these three characters still?,” Somdev added during the media interaction.

The Indian tennis legend continued to reveal his thoughts on the Indian players and said, “Yuki (Bhambri) has now announced that he is not playing singles anymore, but he is in the top 100 in doubles, so he is gonna be around. In singles, we are really missing having those one, two, or three players that are knocking on the top 100 or in the main draw of slams and now we don’t have a single player in qualifiers. So, it’s disappointing that the next generation is closer than we think they are”.

Watch the LIVE coverage of the Australian Open 2023 on Sony Sports Ten 2 and  Sony Sports Ten 5 channels starting from 16th January 2023 at 5:30 am IST.