Pune Marathas made the final of the Champions Tennis League ahead of Hyderabad Aces, winning a thriller of a final league match, and now meets Delhi Dreams for the title.
On the eve of the final, to be played at the R.K. Khanna Stadium on Wednesday, the Pune team seemed to be in a merry mood, with former Wimbledon champion Pat Cash saying, tongue-in-cheek, that it was part of the team’s strategy to lose the first rubber.
“I must lose the first match!” said Cash, with a straight face.
Delhi’s Juan Carlos Ferrero, a former Roland Garros champ himself, was polite in dismissing suggestions that his opening ‘legends’ match against a much older Cash would be a cakewalk. “It is an honour to play him,” said Ferrero.
Cash said that he was impressed by the high quality of the Indian players. “They are better than I expected. They are close to breaking into the big league,” he said.
Jelena Jankovic said she would look forward to her match against Agnieszka Radwanska, her opposite number on the Pune side.
Jankovic, who had a few training sessions with the talented Karman Kaur in the Delhi camp, said the Indian girls could be a lot better if they believed in themselves and trained harder.
She stressed on the fact that it was the intensity of focus that would help one become a top-class player.
On their part, all of the young Indian players who got the opportunity to rub shoulders with the stars, said they were grateful for the experience.
Expressing satisfaction at the execution of his idea by the whole-hearted participation of all players involved, Vijay Amritraj quipped the players had done a world of good to the Indian economy too with their shopping, apart from “doing a lot more than what they were supposed to do, on and off the court”.
