BHUBANESWAR 22-Sep-2013 143
Former India Davis Cup player-turned-coach Akhtar Ali today offered his services to the Odisha Tennis Association (OTA) to train budding players in the state. He made the offer while inaugurating the AITA-OTA Under-14 Championship Series and the Men’s Ranking Tennis Tournaments here at the SOA University sports complex.
Speaking on the occasion, Ali urged budding players to inculcate the desire to win matches if they wanted to make a mark in the game. “Do the basic….you have to be gutsy, give your 100 per cent and don’t worry about the result. I have seen players with the best strokes often being afraid to lose”, said the legend.
Ali, who coached the likes of Vijay Amritraj and Ramesh Krishnan, said young players should have the desire to succeed without bothering about losing. “If you worry, you will not learn the strokes”, he said adding many thought that they would be good players if they practiced 4 to 5 hours every day. This is not true, it is the number of strokes you practice which would count (in the long run),” he said.
Talking to the young players, Ali said they have to lay stress on physical training and fitness as the top players of the world had demonstrated over the years. “You must have watched the 52-ball rally between Djokovic and Nadal in the last US Open,” he said while advising them to stretch after a strenuous match, change their shirt after every tie, have the right kind of nourishing food and go to bed early.
The legendary coach was all praise for the newly-created facility at the SOA University saying it was at par with facilities he had seen in universities in the USA and would go a long way in promoting tennis in the state. “This facility is unbelievable, I would say world-class,” Ali said.
SOA University managing member Gopabandhu Kar said the university’s policy was to promote sports in the state and encourage students to excel in the playing arena. He announced that the university was planning to create more sporting infrastructure in the coming days which included separate air-conditioned badminton and tennis complexes.
OTA secretary Madhusudan Padhi said the state association would conduct more tournaments by utilizing the facility at the SOA tennis complex as it would help Odisha players earn more ranking points. OTA vice-president Satyajit Mohanty and tournament committee chairman Dr R K Hota also spoke on the occasion.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PHOTO: OTA secretary Madhusudan Padhi (Left) presents a memento to Akhtar Ali in Bhubaneswar on Sept 22, 2013.
