TN to take tennis to villages through new scheme

Chennai, Apr 21 (UNI) The Tamil Nadu government will develop 'village nurseries' for taking the primarily urban sport of tennis to the rural areas in a big way, Member Secretary, Sports Development Authority of Tamil Nadu (SDATN) Atulya Misra announced today.

Presiding over the Annual Day function of Tamil Nadu Tennis Association(TNTA) here he said ''there is a need to broadbase the foundation of tennis.'' He said only a few Taluks at present had nice looking tennis courts and added SDATN would start off creating the village nurseries by laying clay or hard courts and shake off the image of tennis as that of a rich man's sport.

The village nurseries would be set up initially in 30 villages in each district of Tamil Nadu, he said.

Former All India Tennis Association (AITA) Secretary P L Reddy said the primary reason for Tamil Nadu not keeping up its tradition of producing talents like Krishnan, his son Ramesh and the Amritraj brothers Vijay and Anand at international level was the education system.

The government especially at the Centre must make sports an integral part of education so that more youngsters could take to sports like tennis. This would keep up the flow of talent, he added.

Several talented tennis players, including internationals like Rushmi Chakravarthy and those upcoming at national level, boys and girls in various age groups, including Sriram Balaji, Khelsi Sundaram, Mohit Mayur, Kamala Kannan, Vijay Saundran, Md Fareez, and V M Ranjit were felicitated with cash awards on the occasion.

UNI