India needs to focus on grassroots, says Becker
Tennis legend Boris Becker says for India to win more medals in Olympics, it will have to build the right infrastructure to establish the right base at grassroots.
“The amount of medals that India won at London Olympics could have been more. For that you need to build right infrastructure to establish the right base at the grassroots for India to succeed in the area of sports,” he said.
Becker, whose rivalry with Swede Stefan Edberg was legendary, said it’s lonely out there at the top and youngsters would need to be taught to cope with that at an early age for India to produce tennis champions.
The German, who is the youngest-ever to win the men’s singles title at Wimbledon at the age of 17, said Indians are good at team sports and a change in mindset is required to produce individual champions.
“It is lonely out there at the top. To succeed, it demands a certain mentality of how to do it alone and it has to be taught at a very young age,” Becker said here. Having experienced from a very young age what it takes to succeed, how to deal with it and sustain it, the tennis icon of ‘80s and 90s said considering India’s history in the sport, the country could produce champions provided the right approach was adopted. “You have some of the best doubles player in tennis. You are very good in cricket, which is again a team sport. But tennis is an individual sport and you need that mindset, of doing it alone to have champions.”
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