Dr. Anil Jain elected unopposed as AITA President
Academy of Tennis Excellence to be launched soon
New Delhi: The All India Tennis Association (AITA) has elected Dr. Anil Jain, Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha, as its new President at the Annual General Meeting (AGM) held in New Delhi today. Dr. Jain, who served as the Vice-President of AITA from 2016-2020, was elected unanimously to lead the administration of AITA, after Mrs. Praveen Mahajan’s tenure as AITA President came to an end this year.
All the posts of office bearers as well as the Executive Committee members were filled without the need for a contest and all the contestants were declared elected unopposed.
Dr. Jain, in his inaugural address, spoke of his commitment to work towards the promotion of tennis and towards increasing the reach of the sport in the country, improvement of infrastructure, coaching & training opportunities and bringing more and higher level of international competition into the country.
“In collaboration with the AITA Trust, the Delhi Lawn Tennis Association and with support from the Govt, we propose to set up the High-Performance Tennis Academy in Delhi which will be a residential training center for excellence. The primary aim would be to bring together and create a pool of our top junior players and provide them with the best possible training, coaching, nutrition, mental training and every other support to help our most talented and promising juniors to break into the top 30 in Junior Category in the world”, said Dr.Jain as he announced the launch of a High-Performance Tennis Academy in Delhi.
The Academy will be equipped with the most modern facilities including a dedicated gym, swimming pool, sports medicine center, A-I based performance monitoring and enhancement systems etc. and would be run by a team of the top coaches, trainers, nutritionists, sports psychologists, sports medicine specialists etc.
The Academy would also be available to our senior athletes who wish to undergo shorter stints of specialized training.
Dr.Jain also expressed the hope of working closely with the Ministry of Sports, Government of India for financial aid and other support necessary for AITA initiatives.
“We shall be actively pursuing all possible financial and other support from the Government as well as Corporates to help get the Academy project and all of AITA’s initiatives off the ground at the earliest”, said Dr. Jain.
On improving the quality and number of elite Indian players, Dr. Jain said, “We look forward to promoting efforts to help improve our performance and stature on the international stage and working towards the AITA VISION – MORE PLAYERS, BETTER PLAYERS”.
Whilst speaking on the current scenario of AITA’s domestic tournament calendar being on halt due to the on-going coronavirus pandemic, Dr. Jain opined that, “In the short term, with support from all of the stakeholders, AITA must try and mitigate the COVID-19 impact on its tournament-structure and bring the sport back to precovid levels at the earliest possible. And from there on, we have to work hard on improving further in all aspects of the sport”.
Dr. Jain signed off his address saying, “I am looking forward to starting close interactions with the Sports Ministry to secure their support in moving forward with our plans to help improve the reach and depth of game in India as well as the caliber of our elite tennis players in all age groups - who would also be our medal hopes at upcoming international events like Youth Olympic, Olympics and Asiads”.
Mr. Anil Dhupar takes over as Secretary General
Secretary of the Madhya Pradesh Tennis Association, Mr. Anil Dhupar, was elected as the Hon. Secretary General and Delhi Lawn Tennis Association President and Indian Davis Cup team Captain, Mr. Rohit Rajpal, will serve as the Hon. Treasurer.
Mr. Dhupar, after his election, said, “The biggest challenge in the short term would be to get the AITA tournament circuit back in action”. Below is the complete list of unanimously elected office bearers for the period 2020-2024:-
President - Dr. Anil Jain
Vice Presidents - Mr. Hironmoy Chatterjee
Mr. Chintan N Parikh
Mr. Navneet Sehgal
Mr. Anil Khanna
Mr. Bharat N Oza
Mr. C S Sunder Raju
Mr. Vijay Amritraj
Mr. Rajan Kashyap
Hon. Secretary General - Mr. Anil Dhupar
Hon. Treasurer - Mr. Rohit Rajpal
Hon. Joint Secretaries - Mr. Premkumar Karra
Mr. Raktim Saikia
Mr. Suman Kapur
Mr. Sunder Iyer
The following were elected as members of Executive Committee for the period 2020-2024:-
1. Dr. Akhouri B Prasad
2. Mr. Aneil Mahajan
3. Mr. Ankush Dutta
4. Mr. Ashok Kumar
5. Mr. Gurucharan Singh Hora
6. Capt. Murti Gupta
7. Mr. Thomas Paul
