India’s veteran tennis player Leander Paes has said that if Indian tennis is to be taken forward, it needs people like former cricketer Rahul Dravid and former badminton player and current national coach Pullela Gopichand to hone the young talent.
The Legendary Indian tennis player said that his dream is to prepare the champions of the game after taking inspiration from Rahul Dravid and Pullela Gopichand after saying goodbye to professional tennis. Paes has already announced his retirement after the 2020 season. He wants to prepare champions like national badminton coach Pullela Gopichand and under-19 and India A cricket team mentor Rahul Dravid.
Paes while talking on the sidelines of the Tata Open Maharashtra said
“If I look at some of the past players of India who I have tremendous respect for, there are players like Rahul Dravid, Pullela Gopichand who have trained younger generations to the highest level.”
After winning the All England Open title in 2001, Gopichand achieved considerable success as a coach and gave the country two Olympic medalists. On the other hand, Rahul Dravid, former captain of the Indian cricket team, played an important role in polishing the young talents after he retired from the game.
Paes is of the belief that tennis needs to be reinvented as he said,
“We really need to reinvent tennis because competition for sport in India is huge now with all the leagues, not just IPL. Table Tennis, boxing, wrestling, badminton, Kabaddi are becoming huge in our country.”
“Indian tennis needs energy injection. We have to connect more and more children to sports. There are many distracting things in front of the kids right now and sports and tennis are a good way to get them on the right track.” he added.
Paes, who won the Grand Slam in the doubles category eight times, is playing alongside MatthewEbden at the Maharashtra Open.
The pair lost in the men’s doubles quarter-final to Ramkumar Ramanathan and Purav Raja. The legendary tens player will now be seen in action at the Bengaluru Tennis Open along with his partner Eben.
