With India’s largest and India’s only ATP world tour event starting on 2nd January I look back at a brief history of the event and how it has shaped up the Indian tennis scene .

The event was started in 1996 as McDowells open in New Delhi and witnessed the participation of some top players like Thomas Enqvist, Tim Henman, Jonas Bjorkman, Wayne Ferreira among others. The main draw also included 4 Indians, but only one could make it to the 2nd round i.e. Mahesh Bhupathi. At that time the spectators must have hoped to see an Indian winning the singles title in front of the home crowd in the next 4 to 5 years. As we all know even after completing 15 years, India still hasn’t produced a singles champion at the ATP Chennai open.

In 1997, it was moved to Chennai as the Gold Flake Open and the name was subsequently changed to the Tata Open in 2002 following a change in the title sponsor. This period saw the emergence of India’s greatest Doubles pair of all time, Leander Paes & Mahesh Bhupathi, who won on 4 occasion’s out of the 6 and put India’s name on the tennis map. Also this period saw the coming of Wimbledon champion Richard Krajicek, finalist Malavai Washington, 2 time US Open champion Patrick Rafter, French Open champion Carlos Moya, former world no.2 Yevgeny Kafelnikov, Frenchman Cedric Pioline, former world no.4 Magnus Norman, Paradorn Srichapan and the legendary doubles pair of the Woodbridge brothers .

By this time the event had established itself as a truly global tennis event with the participation of some of the best players of the era. Also, from the Indian point of view the local fans saw their local heroes winning. But when it comes to Singles, none of the Indian’s did well and most of them crashed out in 1st round. Leander Paes was the only Indian in this period to reach the semi-finals in the 1998 edition. Barring Leander most of the Indian’s rankings were not good and there were always 2-3 Indian’s in the main draw courtesy of a wild card, but failed to match the standards of the elite players .

In the years after 2002 till 2008 the event did attract some top players, but the Indian express of Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi had separated and tried their luck with different partners. Although the two were still top doubles players, they failed to capture the crown. In this period several Indian’s got a wild card in the singles event like Karan Rastogi, Harsh Mankad, Rohan Bopanna1, Vishal Uppal, Vishnu Vardhan, but there was one player who always got a wild card in the singles player irrespective of his performance. Prakash Amritraj got the wild card in the main draw of the Chennai Open for 7 consecutive years (from 2003 till 2009) but managed to clear the first hurdle only twice. One can argue the fact that he was one of the top ranked Indian players at that time, but in my view giving the same person a wild card for 7 years was a waste, and if one thinks that he was deserving then he should come through the Qualifying rounds. I believe that being Vijay Amritraj’s son may have helped him gain an upper edge over the others since Vijay was actively involved in organization of the tournament. From 2005-2009, the Chennai Open was co-sponsored by the Tamil Nadu Government.

The 2009 edition may be regarded as one the best edition for the home crowd after Somdev Devvarman, a wild card entrant in the main draw, became the 1st Indian to reach the finals of the event. On his way to the final he had defeated the former French Open champion Carlos Moya and 6 foot 10 inch tall Ivo Karlovic before finally losing to Marin Cilic in the final. Since then, Somdev has continued rise in the rankings and is currently ranked 84 .

2010 saw the 15th anniversary of South Asia’s only ATP World Tour event. The event with a new title sponsor ‘Aircel’ became ‘Aircel Chennai Open’. Both the 2010 and the 2011 edition saw some great competition. The crowd’s newly found hero Somdev Devvarman reached the 2nd round in 2010 ( lost to Janko Tipsarvic ), but disappointed the home crowd in 2011 by losing in the 1st round. Also in 2011, the Indian Express (Paes & Bhupathi) united again and gave the fans what they were hoping for. They won their 5th title together and their first in Chennai after 2002.

Entering it’s 17th year the event can be regarded as successful in terms of organization and hospitality and has always lived up to the expectations of the participants. Also with the coming of top stars, many youngsters must have got inspired to learn tennis and make a career out of it one day. One aspect which needs to be worked upon is the performance of Indian Tennis players who are not able to compete against the top players. The performance of Indian’s have been below par with only Somdev, Leander and Mahesh delivering the results one would like to see. The organizers who are able to attract the money for the event should also try to develop Tennis at the grass root level and also work with top junior level players. So that they play well on the professional men’s circuit as well by providing them the best coaching facilities at very low cost. Even if Chennai Open is able to attract the best players, it is incomplete without that Indian touch and the whole point of organizing such a big event fails when players from the host country are not able to perform well.

In this edition with the likes of Janko Tipsarvic and Nicolas Almagro in the singles edition it would be difficult for the Indian’s to progress. All hopes would be pinned on Somdev and it will be interesting to see what India’s brightest future prospect Yuki Bhambri can do with this opportunity. In the doubles event the chances of seeing an Indian pair winning are good with Mahesh Bhupathi teaming up with Rohan Bopanna.

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