The finals day and the end of a great week.
All good things sometimes have to come to an end and so it was on finals day here in Delhi.
Tim Henman HSBC Ambassador had flown back to Andy Murray's ‘Scottish Royal wedding’ in Dunblane but Goran and Dan were still with us.
The finals did not quite match up to the standard of the semi finals with straight sets wins for Mahak Jain over Prinkle Singh in the girls and Sacchitt Sharrama beating Shashank Theertha also in two sets.
However all four players were thrilled to be coming to the UK for the HSBC Road to Wimbledon National Finals in August and deservedly so, as they had all performed well here and at some of the qualifying events earlier in the year.
Goran and Dan assessed the boys matches with them and emphasised how much physical work is going to be necessary to be prepapred for higher age group ITF events in the next few years.
Making a general point about some of the players we have seen, I would say the physical side of their development is an area that needs to be really concentrated on.
Indian players in the past have often been ‘silky smooth’ from a technical perspective but now with the game so physically demanding there is certainly a priority on physical fitness which must be encouraged.
We had a great week. The All India Tennis Association did us proud in helping us all the way through the Road to Wimbledon journey of tournaments, Masters, coach education and clinics, whilst Manpreet at the AITA as ever gave us amazing support.
We hope we made an impression wherever we went and certainly always found incredible enthusiastic support.
Star Sports and many different types of media helped us promote our tennis messages and gave good exposure to junior tennis with some great videos being sent through daily to web sites, social media via ‘Sparky’, the HSBC Road to Wimbledon videographer.
The HSBC Ambassadors excelled themselves and it was great with the new addition of Goran on board and as ever with the help of Vishal Uppal, who hopefully again will accompany the Indian team as Captain in August.
Click here to view the groups and results so far
‘Mr Enthusiasm’ Head Coach Dan Bloxham, pumped up as ever, gave great examples to players and coaches of commitment and enjoyment which as ever rubbed off on everyone with Goran willing to eagerly learn how Dan keeps ‘so pumped’!
This was the first of a three-year commitment we have with the AITA and we look forward to returning to discuss the plans we have for 2016.
