Reserve crop has potential to yield rich harvest

“Besides, in the recent past, one player or the other from this group has been in the Davis Cup squad. Thus, I feel we should be looking in the 14 to 18 age group to guage the strength of our second string.

“Part of the problem with the present crop of Indian players is that they all want to play power tennis like the Europeans. That simply is not on. Our future lies in the ability to play like Vijay Amritraj or Ramesh Krishnan. They had great deception in their game. They took the ball early, narrowed the angle and used the rivals’ pace to work the ball away.

“Indians are simply not built to belt the ball like the Europeans. The Europeans can hammer away at the ball for a couple of hours and not feel tired. But, not us. And, when our players try to play that game in tournaments they are exhausted. Vijay and Ramesh used their brains far more than their brawn,” he said. Ilyas believed that Manoj Mahadevan, Ravi Shankar (both TN), Harsh Mankad (Mumbai) and Ravi Kiran Bhat (Karnataka) were the juniors in the under-18 age group to watch out for. All four are talented and with lots of hard work, tournament play and right guidance they could be groomed to step into Leander’s and Mahesh’s shoes, he felt.

The Karnataka captain, B R Priyadarshi, a former Nationally ranked player who is now a sought after coach preferred to assess the game of players next in line even as he added Ajay Ramaswamy to Ilyas’ list of players of the future.

Priyadarshi believed that Srinath was playing the tennis of his life, now. “It would be interesting to see him play Leander and Mahesh on clay. My bet would be on him,” he said.

“Srinath has a good serve and an excellent backhand. He is fit and has loads of patience. He has realised that a short angled backhand shot can dramatically open up the court he is far more assertive.

“Srinath has a good forehand, but needs to work on the running forehand. He does not move as well to the right as he does to the left. This is the same problem that Vasudev Reddy, the next most talented player in the National Games has.”

The Karnataka coach and skipper believed that Reddy had the game to hurt a lot of players, but goes into a match without a game plan. “He has big weapons but does not know how to use it. He does not study his opponent and therefore is unable to perform to potential.”

Priyadarshi did not think that Nitin Kirtane had much of a game. “He is too defensive. He cannot cut off angles with his style of play. He retreats most of the time and widens the angle. Also, he does not have the requisite speed. Narla too should work on his service stance and technique. “But my money would be on Harsh Mankad. His mother, Nirupama Mankad was the former National champion. His father Ashok Mankad was shrewd cricketer. His uncle, Vasant Mayur played decent tennis while his grandfather, George Vasant, had a hand in grooming him. The pedigree is there. Besides he is a very intelligent player. It was unfortunate that he could not play here as he contracted chicken pox.”

Both Priyadarshi and Ilyas stated that Srinath’s switch to Holland would teach him how to work out strategies and play each match. If he learnt his lessons early India would have an excellent third player in the very near future, they predicted.