A sport minnows called India



Joy of winning

 How familiar these words sound to a sport enthusiast; Novak Djokovic, Nenad Zimonjic, Janko Tipsarevic, Ana Ivsanovic , Jelena Jankovic, Victor Troicki, Monika sales, and Jelena Dokic? And one more question what is the common thing among these players? Well, any tennis player or who follow tennis can easily make it out that these are the names from a country named Serbia; a small country located at the crossroads between Central and Southern Europe.
This must be a very special day in the history of the one of the least known countries to Indians, Serbia, for an extra ordinary feat they achieved this day by winning prestigious Davis cup tennis tournament which has a glorious 110 years history behind it. They are the new champions and truly deserving after beating France in a sea-saw battle of tennis in which Serbia made the history first time for it, when Victor Troicki crushed Michael Llorda in the final rubber in Belgrade, the capital of Serbia.
I am amazed with the success of the Serbia as a tennis playing nation.

 It is a tiny country of an area of  88000 Sq Kilometer slightly bigger than my native state Uttarakhand and the population of which ,as per Wikipedia, is around 90 Lakh. Producing a world champion for such country can be by chance once, but doing it consistently is really a remarkable feat. Today Noak Djokovic is world no 3, Victor Troicki is no 28, Nenad Zimonjic stands third in doubles, Ana Ivsanovic , Jelena Jankovic have been consistently have been in top 20 . Monika sales who has been once world no.1 is now a Serbian.
This day brought back the ghosts of Indian failure stories in sports back to my mind for which I have been asking to myself for last two decades a question; why we are nowhere to best in sports. What is precisely wrong with us?
Like any other sports, we Indians have nothing very impressive in Davis cup too except that we have been runner up thrice in last 110 year; last time being in final 24 years back. Though the media houses in India blew the trumpet of Indian success in Davis cup often as if we have been 32 times champion like USA is.

What is wrong with India in sports is still not understood to me. Recently you might have observed the euphoria within India after a impressive looking medal tally in Commonwealth games 2010 in Delhi. We were prompt to declare our arrival in sports followed by the success in the corruption marred Commonwealth games where we were the dominating forces only to have an abrupt end of hopes in the same quarter of year where we were dwarfed by the likes of china and Koreas where we could just manage 14 golds.
Again I thought, perhaps there is something drastically wrong with the genes of the nation India, that we have never been found of those games which demands strength, agility and mental toughness; a synonym of tennis also.

This country can love only cricket that too the batting part, which requires nothing but concentration. Bowling, specifically pace bowling was never a cup of tea for us which requires hard work and extreme physical fitness. Such a cricketmaniac this country is where a man is made God in his life time just because he has so many runs under his belt. How much Indians believe in adulation is visible in two areas i.e in cricket and politics. After a good century, Sachin Tendulkar might be laughing all his way from stadium to his home on those people who feel proud calling him God and congress can’t stop smiling who can not just drift away from dynasty politics and only a Gandhi family adulator can grow there.

Anyway, here in tennis we have Paes and Mahesh around for so many years. Though they have achieved very good results in doubles, Mahesh never won a title in singles whereas Leander Paes has just one title under his belt. Vivid till date, I still remember the day when he beat then number one Pete Sampras in the way to win the Newport Tennis Open later. How great achievement for an Indian was and still is, to beat a number one in any sports. It just make me feel like number one was never meant for an Indian in general!

In ladies, we had the glamour girl who had anything else other than talent but like I, there were millions of Indians carrying a false hope on her to bring something cherishable for India and as expected she ended up with controversies and getting married.

Whole the expectations are now on the new kid in town Devverman who is trying to break into top 100 for last two years. Again a false hope I would say for he is already 26 year and winning a medal and winning a tournament are two entirely different things. Wait for a true champion never seems to end. Today logging out with a bitter taste  for not so sporty fellow Indians. Period.