A conditioning camp in right earnest

Emphasis more on fitness than on tennis during off-season

December 28, 2014 12:31 am | Updated 12:31 am IST - CHENNAI:

The particpants are all ears as Mithun Murali (extreme right) explains the nuances of the game at the on Saturday. Photo: S. R. Raghunathan

The particpants are all ears as Mithun Murali (extreme right) explains the nuances of the game at the on Saturday. Photo: S. R. Raghunathan

Tennis is a sport which perhaps has the shortest of off-season windows. Players get barely a month to reflect on the season gone by and make adjustments for better returns in the future before the ball starts rolling again.

But in 2014, the window has been shorter than ever before. While the International Premier Tennis League (IPTL) kept the world’s foremost players busy, the Champions Tennis League (CTL) and Premier Tennis League saw participation by many an Indian.

Some of these Indian players like Ramkumar Ramanathan, Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan, Prajnesh Gunneswaran, Sasi Kumar Mukund among others, hailing from Tamil Nadu, have now come together, under the aegis of the local association, for a strengthening-cum-conditioning camp before the Aircel Chennai Open which starts on January 5.

Cohesiveness is the goal

“Normally all players have a decent off-season,” says Karti P. Chidambaram, Vice-President, Tamil Nadu Tennis Association (TNTA). “But this year the season was longer and a bit disjointed. So we wanted to bring some cohesiveness and also get them fit. During the off-season the emphasis is more on fitness than on tennis.”

Leading the camp is the duo of Mithun Murali, a former National doubles champion and Manu Bajpai, a strength-and-conditioning specialist.

“First Jeevan called me and said he wanted to do his pre-season here,” says Mithun. “I then thought what about the other guys? So we decided to get all of them in. The Tamil Nadu players are a close unit. They help each other. Now seniors like Jeevan can help the younger lot like Sasi Kumar Mukund and it goes on like a cycle.”

The schedule involves a session of endurance training early in the morning followed by a round of tennis in the afternoon. An evening session with emphasis on the technicalities of the game, like improving one’s serve, the ball toss among others, depending on each player’s want, concludes the day.

Good intensity

“In the past week, we had some good intensity,” says Mithun. “We need to maintain the same till the last day. The basic goal is to get everybody sharp and they should have hit enough balls before the tournament.”

“I have tried different things over the past years,” says Jeevan. “I have trained abroad. I have played a lot of tournaments before the Open. But this kind of conditioning camp is what I thinks works best. So I decided to do this.”

In the last five years, only Prakash Amritraj (2010 and 2013) and Ramkumar (2014) have made it past the qualifying rounds at the Open. The latter is now the third-best Indian singles player (world no. 244) and has been granted a wild card for the event. Yet, for him and those who are part of the qualifying campaign, which will see players ranked as high as the 90s, these preparations are of paramount importance, especially after a gruelling season.

“The wild card was a bonus,” Ramkumar says. “The aim is to keep my body fit and keep working. So I am here.”

(This is a fortnightly feature on the sporting scene in Chennai)

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