Former tennis player Tim Henman giving autograph to young players at the launch of Road to Wimbledon event in Mumbai on Sunday. Photo: Santosh Hirlekar/PTI
Mumbaikars woke up to a particularly cold morning on Sunday but for former British tennis star , the weather was perfect. Back home in London, temperatures are at around 5 degrees Celsius. Not exactly tennis weather. But at the Maharastra State Lawn Tennis Association grounds in Mumbai, Henman was out in the crisp all-white tennis attire he wore with such aplomb at the All-England Lawn Tennis Club (AELTC) during his playing days, signing autographs and hitting a few forehands and backhands. The young tennis players looked suitably thrilled at the chance to meet the former British No.1-some of them had brought along their parents, eager to get autographs and pose for pictures. It was a Sunday morning treat.
Henman wants more of these children to play tennis and he's got an incentive up his sleeve: a chance to go to the All-England Lawn Tennis Club, London, the venue for the year's biggest Grand Slam tennis tournament, the Wimbledon Championships.
Henman, who was accompanied by Dan Bloxham, one of Britain's leading tennis coaches on the junior circuit, and Paul Hutchins, a former British tennis player, is on a serious mission. Keen to promote junior tennis talent, the men are part of a programme called Road to Wimbledon (RTW). Started in the UK in 2002, the HSBC Road To Wimbledon 14 and Under National Challenge is the UK's largest national junior grass court tournament. Over 20,000 junior players from Britain compete through two stages of tennis tournaments affiliated to it-the first held by their local clubs and schools, and then by their regions-that culminate in the finals event held at the AELTC every August. And that's where Henman wants to take the Indian challengers.
The RTW has till now been open to children only from Britain; this year is the first time the tournament has invited players from another country to compete in the finals in England.
'This is not about searching for the next Grand Slam tennis champion. This is about giving an opportunity to Indian kids-as we do to kids back home-to compete at a certain level, to appreciate playing tennis at a level that will gear them to play serious tennis in future,' says Henman, a four-time semi-finalist at the Wimbledon Championships.
As part of the RTW in India, two tournaments, one each in Delhi and Mumbai, are being held-the Mumbai one started on Sunday. The top 16 boys and 16 girls from these two events will play in Delhi in April. The two finalists (boys and girls) at this event will go to London to play at the UK HSBC National Finals at Wimbledon.
'There's a lot of talent here in India that we've seen this past week. However, when these kids come on to the court and we raise the standards, the movement required, the energy required, that's new to them. So we want to train them, to sensitize them to the kind of competition that's there outside. They should be able to go to other countries, play against people from other countries, on different courts, to experience different tournaments; there's no reason why they can't be great players,' says Henman.
Unlike professional tennis players who play on a well-organized circuit across the world and get awarded points, the juniors' circuit is a bit disjointed. At the very least, the local tennis clubs, state or national associations host tournaments for children of various age groups, like under-14, under-16, under-18. Those children who do well here get a nudge to take part in the circuit that's run by the International Tennis Federation (ITF), tennis' governing body. This year, three of the ITF's junior events are being held in India, all in January (the first was from 6-11 January; the second from 13-18 January; the third is to be held from 20-25 January). The four Grand Slams-tennis' biggest events-also host junior events where young players get to play if they qualify.
Leander Paes won the Wimbledon junior singles title in 1990. The current top Indian prospect, Yuki Bhambri, won the 2009 Australian Open boys' singles crown. But unlike Paes, Bhambri, who's ranked 171 in men's singles by the Association of Tennis Professionals, has yet to find his feet on the full professional circuit.
Often players, especially Indians who play well on the junior circuit, find it hard to cross over to the more physically demanding professional circuit. Bhambri has clearly struggled, qualifying for only a handful of professional tournaments and therefore necessarily focused on smaller-level events or the so-called 'Futures' events, the lowest rung of the professional ladder.
The RTW is hardly an answer to Indian junior tennis' woes, but for youngsters who aspire to compete at a global level someday, a chance to play at Wimbledon against some of the best of British junior talent sounds like an opportunity no young player would want to miss.
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