'They are spoiling it': Former Olympian calls out officials for inaction in saving Indian tennis

Former Olympian and Asian Games silver medallist Manisha Malhotra has expressed deep disappointment over the current state of tennis in India. Her remarks come at a time when the Australian Open tournament is capturing global attention, highlighting the glaring contrast in tennis development.

"If you ask me, the story of tennis is very sad. I started thinking that tennis was such a good sport where we had such a deep culture for this. It has been like this since the time of Ramanathan Krishnan, which we have now destroyed. If there is no progress today, there are no players, then it is our fault. I feel very sad to see this because whatever I am today is because of tennis. Whatever I have in my life is because of tennis. I am not able to do anything about this. Those who are sitting (officials) are not doing anything and whatever they are doing, they are spoiling it. Many tennis players are with me, thinking that we have reached a very bad situation and if we have to save tennis, then sweeping changes will have to be made," she said.

Lack of governance and development programs
Malhotra criticised the absence of a governance structure and development pipeline in Indian tennis, stating:

"The problem with tennis is that we did not have any governance pipeline for running it. Those who were running the federation did not create any structure and system. We did not have any junior development program and neither did we have a school program...Those who were part of the federation never had a focus on how to improve the development of tennis. The situation we have reached now is very disappointing. You can go to any club's court and see that there is no one playing. Tennis courts are being converted into pickle-ball and padel courts, this is a big problem which we will have to solve soon."

With PTI inputs