India lose only ATP 250 tournament after 27 editions since 1996

Representational Image (Pic: Istock)

In a major setback for Indian tennis, the country has lost its only ATP 250 tournament, an event that was first held way back in 1996 and till recently was organised as Tata Open Maharshtra. The Maharashtra State Lawn Tennis Association (MSLTA) had saved it from going out the country in 2018 when Tamil Nadu Tennis Association (TNTA) gave up on hosting the tournament after conducting it for 13 long years.

The tournament was an arrangement between MSLTA, Maharashtra government, IMG and RISE Worldwide (an initiative of the Reliance Group), the owner of the tournament.

"The contract with IMG and RISE stands successfully completed, MSLTA has undertaken all its commitments towards successful conduct of the event for 5 years," MSLTA Secretary Sunder Iyer and Tournament Director Prashant Sutar said in a statement.

"We still have a commitment from both the Government of Maharashtra and our sponsors TATA for promoting Tennis in Maharashtra and India when we have the right opportunities to organise any other major event which we are pursuing in right earnest currently in interest of our players and Indian tennis fraternity," they added.

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In terms of presence, it definitely is a setback. Being on the ATP World Tour has lot of benefits, not just for the sport but also for the city that hosts the event.

The sport gets popularity when players like iconic Rafael Nadal, Carlos Moya, Stanislas Wawrinka and Marin Cilic compete in this tournament. It bring more people into the game while the city too gets prominence.

However, recently Cilic was the best the organisers could rope in.

But looking from the perspective of its benefit to Indian singles players, it can't be called a setback.

The Indian players, due to their low ranking, mostly had to depend on wild cards to enter the event. The tournament offered 1250 ATP Ranking points in five editions and Indian players could earn only 80. They could never go beyond second round.

So, instead of a big tournament like this, having Challengers is more beneficial. It has been proved multiple times.

Yuki Bhambri, making full use of KPIT Challenger broke into top-100 in 2015. Winning the Bengaluru Challenger gave Sumit Nagal's career a big push and Prajnesh Guneswaran too exploited the opportunity when he did well in the Challengers held in India.

(With PTI inputs)