However, Karti P Chidambaram, the vice president of All India Tennis Association and the chairman of the organising committee of Aircel Chennai Open, is a breath of fresh air in the system. Coming from a strong political background, with his father P Chidambaram being the Union Home minister, Karti does not deny the importance of being well-connected to successfully run a sports federation. From access to corporates who support an event to getting funds cleared by the ministry, it could all seem a tad easy. But at the same time, he believes that hosting mega events in sports will only help federations generate funds.His outspoken nature has many a times ruffled a few feathers in the fraternity. But that doesn’t stop him from being a catalyst in bringing a positive change in sports administration. His decisions too may seem brash at times, like the recent one of excluding Asian Games gold medalist Sanam Singh for the Chennai Open doubles wildcard but he has always managed to state reasons backed by sufficient facts that uphold his stand.

In an exclusive interview with Sportskeeda.com, Karti talks about the Aircel Chennai Open that will begin on January 2 and also about the future stars in Indian tennis. Excerpts:

Nandini: How is the buzz around Chennai Open?

Karti: It’s poor this time but I’m confident that it will pick up as the tournament progresses. Even if the buzz is there or not, the average turn out for the first three days will be around 3500 people and last three days is 5500, a full house. Unfortunately, in India, the biggest interest is to see super stars and for ussuperstars are Federer, Nadal, Djokovic and Murray. The rest will come to watch Indian stars. Amongst the Chennai crowd, there will be about 1500 people who understand tennis and will come to watch some good matches.

Nandini: But don’t you think without the big names in the business, the tournament value has sort of dipped over the past couple of years?

Karti: There are three ATP tours happening at the moment: Doha, Brisbane and Chennai and before end of the year, we have an exhibition tournament in Abu Dhabi. The appearance money for the big players for this tournament will be about half a million to a million dollars. Doha pays about a million for the top four guys. We are not in that bracket. Our total budget is two million and we can’t even think of spending on those lines. This tournament is as big as it can get. This is one of the best 250 point ATP tour. Nowhere else in the world there is a 250 point tournament which gets more attendance than this.

Nandini: What about ticket sales?

Karti: Ticket sales are good. This time, in fact, we have re-negotiated for 50 percent of the ticket salesmoney for the TNTA.

Nandini: How come there is no talks of having asimilar tournament for women?

Karti : Nobody can name top 10 women players in the world. There was a lot of pressure on us from other quarters to host women’s tournament but I had my reservations. From this tournament (Chennai Open), we would make a profit. It’s important to have events that generate money otherwise how will our federation get money. In cricket, we have the stars and the events. For us, we don’t have the stars but we have the event. This charity business of please give me money to run my sport is not sustainable. Someone might write you a check of a lakh just because you are asking but when you have a packaged event with live telecast and an opportunity to interact with players and all, people will come forward to put in money.

Nandini: Can we expect a couple of more tournaments like Chennai Open?

Karti: There is room for one more tournament in September. We can have it in Delhi or Mumbai. Delhi would be quite ideal because it’s got a great stadium now.

Nandini: Tell us about your decision of giving wild cards to unknown players in doubles. Don’t you think it is a biased choice since all four of them are from Tamil Nadu?

Karti: In doubles this time, I looked at the history of the past few years to see who have been awarded Wild Cards. Sanam Singh, Somdev, Yuki Bhambri, Vishnu Vardhan have all been given opportunities in the past. So this time we decided to think out of the box and give four Tamil Nadu boys the wild card. One pair is Sriram Balaji (21 years) and Jeevan (23 years) and the other pair is Mohit Mayur (18 years) and Ram Kumar (17 years). These boys are a part of our training set-up in Germany, barring Ram Kumar who trains in Spain. This is not a biased pick at all. I can show you their performances in this past one year. Sanam Singh, we have given him a wild card in 2011 January based on Asian Games. In terms of ranking, Jeevan is ranked higher than all of them. Moreover, I don’t see a harm in promoting Tamil Nadu players because this is a Tamil Nadu Association-run tournament.

Nandini: Can you tell us a little bit about Ram Kumar and Mohit…

Karti: Ram Kumar at 17, has 10 ATP points. There is nobody in India who has 10 ATP points at his age. He is the highest ranked junior in India and no under-18 player is ranked higher than him in the men’s category. And please note that he has earned these points playing tournaments in Spain. He isranked about 900 in the world. Mohit’s performance speaks for himself. He has won a couple of national titles this year and has a record of finishing in top two. These two were picked purely based on their performance. If we don’t showcase our local boys in our own tournament where else will they get a chance. We should start putting money on the lesser known players. You never know, it mayclick. Ram Kumar is full-time in Spain and we are trying to get him into the Australian Open (juniors).

Nandini: In singles, you have given wild cards to Yuki Bhambri and Vishnu Vardhan. Can you elaborate your decision to pick them?

Karti: In singles, we gave the wild card to Yuki (Bhambri). He is the national champion. We gave him a wild card last year too but then he didn’t do too well. He is still young but is breaking down quite a bit withinjuries. Vishnu was our other pick. He has had a good tour and has held up against some strong opponents. He played a competitive match against Nishikori in Davis Cup. Both are ranked about 300 odd and they need to make a jump. Playing one round and winning hopefully, in Chennai Open will make a big difference to them in terms of gaining points and confidence as well. The draw is going to be tough this time as there are 28 players as opposed to draw of 32. In singles, we usually give two wild card forIndia and one for an outside player.

Nandini: What about preparations for the Olympics?

Karti: We can’t prepare for Olympics when it is just two weeks after the Wimbledon. The tricky part is, as things stand today, for Somdev to make the cut. In doubles, the top ten ranked players get in. Singles, top 56 get in. Max they would have to be within 64 because the entries are limited to three per country regardless of ranking. Somdev is on 84 now. Cut off date is June/July something and by that time he has to be within that ranking. Anything he does in Chennai will be a bonus for him. Mahesh and Leander too have a lot of points to defend so the next six months is going to be very crucial for all the players.

Nandini: What do you have to say about Mahesh and Rohan partnering for doubles?

Karti: Both have had a good year. Mahesh is very competitive on court but he doesn’t play Deuce. So, I don’t know how it will be. Since its on grass, it should be good for Rohan. Both of them are good friends and I am sure they will share a good chemistry on court. It will be interesting to see if Sania (Mirza) will make it to the singles, doubles shouldn’t be a problem for her.

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