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When the NECC-ITF women’s $25,000 tennis tournament concludes at the Deccan Gymkhana in Pune on December 27, the Maharashtra State Lawn Tennis Association (MSLTA) would have taken the total prize money for 2015 to a record $150,000 (close to Rs 1 crore).
The MSLTA scheduled eight international events, including the $50,000 ATP event in Pune, three $25,000 ITF Futures for women in Aurangabad, Navi Mumbai and Pune, one $10,000 ITF Futures for women in Nashik and a similar for men in Mumbai and an ITF and ATF events for juniors.
The state association plans to increase the number of internationals to 10 or 12 in 2016 with four or five allocated to Mumbai including a $50,000 tournament for women.
Maharashtra has been in the forefront of organising tournaments across men, women and junior category and Tamil Nadu and Hyderabad provided opportunities for the men to pick some big points.
The ITF events for men has smaller prize money, but as tennis maestro Vijay Amritraj said last year in Pune at a team-launch event related to the Champions Tennis League, the ITF events largely help the Indian men players win points and slowly climb the ATP points ladder.
Flip side
There is a flip side to the $10,000 events for men; Indian players virtually take all slots in the 32-card draw in singles and doubles which has a 16-card draw. “But it helps them to win points in singles and doubles. A player has to win points in three different $10,000 tournaments in a year to get a ranking. We decided to have three $25,000 events for women because men have more tournaments to play in India,” said Sunder Iyer, Secretary, MSLTA.
As of now India has one in ATP’s top 100 (Yuki Bhambri 93), two in the 100-200 group (Saketh Myneni 171 and Somdev Devvarman 180), two in the 200-300 group (Ramkumar Ramanathan 262, Sanam Singh 272), one in the 300-400 group (N Vijay Sundar Prashanth 373), three in the 400-500 group (Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan 426, Sumit Nagal 436 and Vishnu Vardhan 485).
The ITF has turned out to be a boon for players such as Ramanathan (winner at Mysuru, Coimbatore, Gwalior and Mumbai), Nagal (winner at Hyderabad, Chennai, August and Madurai), Nedunchezhiyan (winner at Bhimavaram and Chennai (August/September), Prashanth (Trichy, Chennai, March, Chennai, September), Karunuday Singh (winner at Mandya), Sasi Kumar Mukund (winner at Ludhiana) and Pranjesh Gunneswaran (winner, Ludhiana).
The semifinalists in the Navi Mumbai event were from Australia, Belarus, Russia and Serbia and the trend of overseas players making the most of the Indian Futures is likely to continue at the Pune’s Deccan Gymkhana next week. So while the men have grabbed the ITF Futures events, the women are not able cope up with competition from overseas players.