All India Tennis Association and Sports Authority of India’s Educaiton Webinar hold a session on Long Term Development of a Tennis Player

Davis Cuppers Vishnu Vardhan and Saketh Myneni make a guest appearance

The 10th day of the Education Webinar for Coaches, jointly organised by the All India Tennis Association (AITA) and the Sports Authority of India (SAI), addressed on the topic of – Long Term Development of a Tennis Player – an aspect of Tennis development in the country which will make a crucial impact on the number of future Tennis stars India produces in the coming years.

The Director of AITA Coach’s Education Program, Suresh Sonachalam imparted his wealth of knowledge and practical experiences with the AITA registered coaches in attendance at the webinar. As guest speakers, Vishnu Vardhan, Olympian and Saketh Myneni, Arjuna Awardee interacted with Manoj Vaidya, CEO of Maharashtra State Lawn Tennis Association and numerous Indian tennis coaches.

“It is great spending time with my two year old kid during this period of lockdown. I try to make sure that I get at least one hour of fitness in the morning and evening. Yoga is nice. I am reading, catching up on a lot of movies which I missed,” shared Vardhan about the current situation.

Saketh Myneni, on the other hand, stressed on the importance of studies along with developing and improving your tennis as a player.

“College tennis in the United States helped me a lot. It played a significant role in my development as a person, I became independent when I moved out of the comfortable environment of home,” said Myneni, who’s ranked 180th (in Doubles) on the ATP Rankings.

Further into today’s session, Sonachalam delved deep into the importance of “Long Term Development of a Tennis Player”.

“Your goal is to ensure that the tennis player sticks to the game for the rest of their life. You are giving them health, joy and happiness for the rest of their life which they can enjoy. Apart from this, you must have another goal, that is to work on producing top level players,” shared Sonachalam.

“You may choose either of the goals, what you do in the initial stages is not different. You do the same things. Only as you go further with the player making a commitment, then things change. You specialize in Tennis only after the age of 10. However, fundamental skills will remain the same throughout the lifetime of an athlete,” underlined Sonachalam during his session.

The AITA and SAI organised Education Webinar is now reaching the fag end of the schedule and on the second last day, the list of expert panelists would include SAI representatives Isha Chopra, SAI Coach, South India and Chandra Bhushan, Senior SAI Coach, Delhi. Current Davis Cup coach, Zeeshan Ali and Davis Cupper, Ashutosh Singh will join as guest speakers.