Indian Tennis 2014: Year in Review

Sania Mirza and Saketh Myneni with their doubles gold medal at the Asian Games this year

2014 was an exciting and eventful year for tennis. We saw two new Grand Slam Champions being crowned, Roger Federer come back to form, Rafael Nadal struggle with injuries and Novak Djokovic and Serena Williams end the year as world no. 1 in men’s and women’s tennis respectively. 2014 has been an eventful one for the indian players as well with a few of them reaching great heights in their career. There were a few who did not perform well as well, which could be seen in their results.

Lets have a look as to how the Indian tennis contingent performed during 2014.

Highs

Sania Mirza – India’s best player this season

Sania Mirza probably had the best season of her life where she reached all new heights in her career. She completed a career Grand Slam in mixed doubles when she won the U.S Open Championships with her partner Bruno Soares. She won a Gold and bronze at the 17th Asian Games in Incheon, South Korea. She paired with Saketh Myneni in the mixed doubles tournament to win the gold.

She also won a bronze medal in Women's doubles tournament, where she paired with Prarthana Thombare. Cara Black and Mirza won the WTA Finals as well defeating Hsieh Su-wei and Peng Shuai 6–1, 6–0 in the final.

Spirited fight at Davis Cup

India faced off with Serbia in the Davis Cup playoffs in October. Even though they lost the series 3-2, they showed immense resilience and fought hard. Leander Paes and Rohan Bopanna came from two sets down to defeat the Serbs in an epic doubles encounter, whereas Somdev Devvarman won a thrilling 5-set match against Dusan Lajovic.

Ankita Raina : One for the future?

Ankita Raina lifted the ITF $25000 title in Pune on the 27th of this month. India’s highest ranked tennis player dominated the final against Katy Dunne, beating the British girl 6-2, 6-2. Ankita became the first Indian to win an ITF $25000 title on Indian soil and only the third Indian after Nirupama Vaidynathan-Sanjeev and Sania MIrza to win the title worldwide.

IPTL and CTL : A grand success

November and December saw 2 high-profile tennis leagues — Mahesh Bhupathi’s International Premier Tennis League (IPTL) and Vijay Amritraj’s Champions Tennis League (CTL) take place in India. Indians were able to see their favourite stars like Federer, Djokovic, Caroline Wozniacki, Ana Ivanovic play right in front of their eyes. These tournaments were done so as to promote tennis in India and they were highly successful.

Lows

Still no luck in singles

Somdev Devvarman and Yuki Bhambri, after good starts to the year, when they won a Challenger each in India, have seen their rankings plummet. They are supposed to be India’s best singles players, but their performances have been very poor. This resulted in neither of them getting direct entry into the Aircel Chennai Open which is the only ATP Tournament in India.

Doubles performances have gone down as well

Even in doubles, India is still dependent on 41-year-old Leander Paes to shore up the team. Saketh Myneni and Ramkumar Ramanathan have had a very average year, with only a few notable performances.

“We need a much-bigger pool of players,” said India’s Davis Cup captain Anand Amritraj. “Ramkumar has come along very well and probably should start playing Davis Cup. But what’s worrying is that there aren’t many 17 and 18-year-olds showing promise. Guys like Sasikumar Mukund are there, but we need more.”