Indian tennis needs a focus on coaching, or we'll miss out on talent: Interview with India's Davis Cup coach, Zeeshan Ali

Zeeshan Ali was part of a Davis Cup squad that faced tennis great Stefan Edberg; he now coaches the team

At the recently concluded GoSports Conclave, a number of Indian sporting icons joined forced to speak about and work towards promoting homegrown Indian sporting talent, finding the skill at the grassroots and effectively developing it.

Sportskeeda sat down in an exclusive interview with India's Davis Cup coach and former professional tennis ace Zeeshan Ali, who spoke to us extensively about coaching, training, tennis in India and much more.

Excerpts:Tennis is quite popular in India, especially since Sania Mirza has returned to glory; what do you think of the current state of the sport?

Yeah, tennis is getting much bigger. You've got your leagues, ITF tournaments, ATP tournaments all being held in India, with a lot of participation.

But we tend to focus on one athlete, one coach, even as federations, when it's important to be looking for and promoting talent across the board. People may know there's a Yuki Bhambri, who's India's top-ranked player; they know Somdev Devvarman, who used to be, but do they know Saketh Myneni, who's India's no. 2 and has had a brilliant year?

The biggest problem with tennis today is coaching, in India. And it's not entirely the coaches' fault either. If federations and associations can guarantee, can give coaches an assurance of income, of a raise, they will not have to worry excessively about feeding their families, fulfilling their needs; they will then be able to focus on students.

As it currently stands, because they do not have that assured salary, many, if not most, resort to private coaching. And in that private coaching, it isn't focussed either. When the income becomes the priority, coaches take on many kids, and they can't pay each child the attention he or she needs.

That doesn't help their game, give them any skills or develop the ones they already have. They're just being sent to classes by their parents, expensive classes that an upward-income set of parents is paying for, classes that they'll attend until either the parent or the child gets bored of them.

Then, for the coach, it becomes about having 7, 8, 10 kids on court all at once being taught how to hit the ball. And nobody really learns anything in the process.

If Federations can regularise and standardize incomes for India's tennis coaches, they can focus on finding the best talent we have to offer. There are children out there who can be the next Sania Mirza, the next Leander Paes. Yes, that talent is rare, but it's there and needs to be encouraged. If we can find this talent, there will be a glut of tennis players that we have to choose from!

Ali, as the Davis Cup coach, is also key on the selection committee.

Right now, although we have very talented tennis players, if tomorrow, I wanted to pick out a squad, I know exactly which players I'd want to pick. I know who the standout talents are, and those four, five people would know who they are too. It's a process I could do over the phone, when really there should be enough players that we have to form a larger committee, deliberate over our choices.

It is a joy to be able to do that, to have so much tennis talent that you're spoiled for choice. But as it currently stands, having to pick the team is a piece of cake.Meanwhile, when I was on the side, we were playing Sweden in the Davis Cup tie. And Stefan Edberg, who had won Wimbledon that year, was on the team. Stefan Edberg, the Stefan Edberg.

The legend whom Roger Federer idolised, who coached him.

(As this interview goes live, however, Federer has announced his split from Edberg, and will now be coached by Ivan Ljubicic. )

And they didn't play him! Can you imagine, one of the best players in the world, the man who won the Championships that year, and they didn't play him. That's the amount of tennis talent that they had to choose from. If we can search and promote our grassroots talent, we could too. But at the moment, we can't.

There's also a big problem in that tennis is seen as an elitist sport. It is no doubt an expensive sport - equipment, camps, specialised training; but there are children who may not be from the metros; children who may not have the money they need to hone their skills, but they're good.

But with tennis there is a persistent attitude of 'oh, you're in tennis, you must already have money,' which is completely untrue. And the sad part is, because that attitude persists, there is an unwillingness by corporates, by those who otherwise could, to help these youngsters financially and contribute to them. It's because of the perception of tennis that this is still, however, a problem.

A lot of coaches also send their pupils to camps they may not need, to learn skills that will not even be useful to them. There are several training camps in Spain for young kids, kids who want to hit like Rafael Nadal or Alex Corretja, watching Fernando Verdasco and Feliciano Lopez.

When they attend those camps in Madrid and Barcelona and other cities, both child and parent believe that that camp will help the kid serve and attack backhands like Rafael Nadal, become the next King of Clay. The truth is, do they know, do they see that those skills that Spanish players have, the surfaces they play on, how their bodies are built, that it might not necessarily be the most suitable for an Indian player?

India doesn't have many clay surfaces at all - what is practicing endlessly, intensely on clay and learning the Spanish style of play going to do? The parent will spend a large amount of money for their child to learn the European style of play - then have to come back to India and use those skills, which is counterintuitive.

And the coach will make a certain amount of money off each child sent to that camp; for skills they don't really need. Staggering and assuring payments can prevent all of this. And it's something that needs to be paid attention to on priority. The parents who put their kids into training also need to be careful. It's not like before, when parents from sporting backgrounds put kids into sport; they're now willing to see their children go through the sport.

But the internet also poses other problems - parents who may not necessarily know how to play the sport will come on to court when I'm handling their son or daughter.Here, Ali relates how he dealt with a parent on court: I was coaching a young boy once, and his father kept saying something to him from the sidelines, shouting, yelling out at him.

At one point, I just went up to the man and asked him what the problem was. He said 'oh, nothing, it's just that I was online and apparently that's not what a backhand is supposed to look like..' The problem there is that every parent on the sidelines is now a (famed tennis coach) Nick Bolletieri [who was instrumental in shaping the career of, among others, Andre Agassi] and knows exactly how Nadal attacks his opponents, how Federer honed his serve-and-volley skills, how the SABR should be played.

Each child has his or her own skills and natural talent, and it's the job of the coach to be able to spot and hone that talent. We need not only to identify the talent, but also to identify coaches.

Several decent players from India, who aren't able to make it on the professional circuit, go abroad on scholarships and stay on there to coach; and in their way, they're giving back to the sport that gave them so much. We need to find former players, experts who are willing to come back, to find the talent they had in others.

India should follow a system like Russia's - there are coaches at every single level - in the district, the city, the province, each paid standardised salaries. It's their sole job to find and develop that talent. And once players who go through that system succeed, they give back 30% of their income to the Russian Tennis Federation, which will put it back into the system and use it in the training of a new generation, a new crop of tennis players.

Tennis has really come a long way since I was on the professional circuit, though. From ONE satellite tournament when I was younger, to several ATP Challengers, ITF events, Futures events all being held across the country now - cities like Pune, Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, all over India now involved, it's so much bigger. And that is why federations need to pay more attention to finding and developing that talent that is there.

Asked what he thought of the tennis leagues currently popular in the sport, Ali is noncommittal.

All this CTL, IPTL, I think it is great for the sport; (Ali himself was part of last year's Champions Tennis League, on the winning Pune Marathas side alongside Saketh Myneni and Marcos Baghdatis) But it's also more entertainment than sport. It's not your traditional tennis match, it's a short, quick format that I think has become more popular after the IPL gained the immense following it now enjoys.

Yes, leagues are great to popularise the sport, but if we can have our youth see Davis Cup draws, challengers, and watch those 3 - or 5 sets being played - 3 or 5 sets of longer drawn out, but just as electrifying tennis, that will be an inspiration to them too.