Nationwide Tennis Centre shuts store, expertise pipeline left excessive and dry

Dawn to sundown: Gamers and coaches throughout good occasions on the Nationwide Tennis Centre in New Delhi.
| Picture Credit score: particular association

Precisely 4 years after it was launched with the goal of manufacturing a pipeline of expertise to replenish the barren terrain of singles tennis in India, the Nationwide Tennis Centre (NTC) in New Delhi has ceased operations as on December 31, 2024.

The programme was headed by Zeeshan Ali who had moved from Bengaluru lock, inventory and barrel. Zeeshan was India’s Davis Cup coach from 2013 and had resigned in August final 12 months.

Shockwaves

Sources advised The Hindu that the transfer to shut the NTC got here as a shock and it was conveyed to these working there, Zeeshan included, through a terse e-mail, with out specifying any causes. Calls to Anil Dhupar, the then secretary-general of the AITA, went unanswered.

It’s to be famous that the administration of the AITA is presently in limbo, with the elections held on September 28 but to be ratified by the Delhi Excessive Court docket. A petition filed by former gamers Somdev Devvarman and Purav Raja alleging violation of the Sports activities Code by the AITA is pending.

The choice to shut the NTC was taken on the Annual Basic Assembly held on September 28. The NTC was set as much as give the proficient gamers, who would have in any other case discovered prices prohibitive, an opportunity to excel.

It offered lodging, coaches, health trainers and different providers to athletes from across the nation. There was additionally a pay-and-play part, however at subsidised charges.

Digvijay Pratap Singh, who made his Davis Cup debut towards Morocco in Lucknow in 2023, and 21-year-old Karan Singh, who has been named for the tie towards Togo in February, got here via the NTC.

However, within the final 12 months, it’s understood that the general requirements had gone down, a lot in order that the centre didn’t also have a physio.

“At one level, we had near 45 to 50 of India’s finest junior and senior gamers, leaving apart the top-five like Sasikumar Mukund and Sumit Nagal,” stated the supply.

“We had the most effective gamers within the nation coaching collectively, a system that has labored wonders in international locations like the US, China and lots of European nations. We produced 10 Nationwide champions in several age teams within the first three years.

“However that imaginative and prescient turned distorted. As gamers graduated out of the juniors, they wanted extra assist. However what we promised them, issues like a travelling coach, bills for journeys overseas, by no means materialised and gamers began leaving.”

Halfway, the AITA determined that the NTC ought to have U-12 and U-14 gamers, and to accommodate them, among the senior gamers had been requested to depart. In the direction of the tip, the NTC had solely change into a pay-and-play academy, militating towards its founding ideas.