Memories of another day

1SO CLOSE YET SO FAR 8212; 1952 and 8217;54: The Indian Thomas Cup squad twice came close to making history when they fell one win short during the Zonals and thus their dream of playing the finals against Malaysia was blown. In 1952 they lost to the United States and in 1954 Denmark proved a spoke.
2FABLED WIN 8212; 1963: Nandu Natekar enthralled everyone with his fine win over the then defending All-England champion Wattanasin Thailand for the title at the KIng8217;s Cup.
3THE WALL8217; BLOCKS ALL 8212; 1965: Dinesh The Wall8217; Khanna or The Returning Machine8217; bagged the honour of becoming the first Indian to bag the inaugural Asian Confederation Championship at Lucknow and it was the same year that Mumbai8217;s Gautam Thakkar won the ABC Junior crown.
4COMMONWEALTH SUCCESSES 8212; 1978, 8217;82, 8217;98: Prakash set the tone in Edmonton Canada only to be repeated by the Late Syed Modi at Brisbane Australia and then after a gap of 16 years had the men8217;s team pick up silver and the evesbronze at Kuala Lumpur Malaysia.
5WIN AGAINST ODDS 8212; 1980: A win in the first British Masters in 1979, a loss in the same year to Liem Swie King for the All-England crown spurred Prakash Padukone make history at the Royal Albert Hall, London next year with the All-England title. The organisers scheduled Prakash8217;s next to a court that staged the mixed doubles final.
6WORLD TITLES TOO! 8212; 1981, 8217;83: With the Chinese in full steam, Prakash lay his hands on the first Alba World Cup, then annexed the first Indian Masters prize money meet at Pune beating an agile and stubborn Han Jian of China and topped it all with a bronze in the World Championship in Copenhagen.
7ASIAN GAMES DOUBLES MEDAL 8212; 8217;82: The crack combination of Pradeep Gandhe and Leroy D8217;Sa bagged bronze to give the home crowd Delhi something to cheer about, in 1982.
8WOMEN POWER 8212; 1981, 8217;96: The best ever came when Ami Ghia reached the finals of the first Masters in Pune, then Aparna Popat hadher share of glory making it to the final of the World Junior Championships, Copenhagen in 1996 Unfortunately the coveted crown eluded them. Aparna went on to gain an all-time best world ranking of No 17.
9OTHER MAJORS: Ajay Gandhi8217;s 1987 triumph at the Junior Wimbledon meet; Nikhil Kanetkar8217;s narrow miss of becoming the first Indian to win a Grand Prix meet in 15 years when he lost the US Open finals in 1999; Pullela Gopichand8217;s ranked No 27 in the world success with wins in the French, Toulouse and Scottish Opens and Sachin Ratti8217;s New Zealand Open win.