He was the charmer and the gentleman who won accolades for his elegance on the tennis courts and his warm unassuming persona off it in an era when Jimmy Connors and John Mcenroe were making waves for their tantrums and Bjorn Borg was the silent Swede. He was, along with the Indian cricket team, the most watched, applauded, and critiqued sports personality in the 1970s and 80s, and Vijay Amritraj continues to charm his way through life whether as a sportscaster, a business man or a newly appointed messenger of peace for the United Nations.
“I enjoy what I do. The day I don’t I will quit,” says Amritraj as he sat down for an exclusive interview with Kavita Chhibber retracing his tennis roots and early memories in Chennai, a city he visits every month to see his parents, to his current role as a proud father watching his 18 year old son Prakash follow in his footsteps and the state of tennis then and now among other things.
So lets talk about growing up in Chennai, and why you took to tennis.
I remember very clearly growing up that I was not healthy at all as a child and spent a lot of time in hospitals, with my parents playing a vital role in my early development since they had an unhealthy child on their hands. The doctors had advised that I play some outdoor sport and eventually because both of my parents were into tennis and my older brother Anand was already playing I got into it though more for health reasons and became fairly good in a short period of time. By the time I was 13-14, I started traveling and by 15, I did my first European tour.
It’s a pretty expensive sport and early teens are at a pretty young age to be on a grueling circuit.
Anand and I always traveled together and I have always said that if it wasn’t for him being there for me over the years, I think I wouldn’t have played as long as I did. Its very glamorous for the first month but after that it really hits you, and those days of course people used to always say to us, “Oh you play tennis? But what do you do for a living?” It’s a tough question to answer and everyone thought my parents were crazy to invest so much time and money that they did not have, trying to turn us into tennis players. It was absolutely brutal to make ends meet. My father was a government servant and my mother started a small business so she could pay for the tennis and there were three of us. To make one of the boys into a tennis player was tough enough and three seemed like impossibility. We sort of got into a routine which centered on tennis and education and that was it. You definitely miss out on friends. We had some friends growing up but then you quickly outgrew them and then you have no friends. You didn’t have your normal school activities and we were going to school 3 months in a year while others were going for 9 –10 months. The sacrifices by our parents were immense and it is so hard to explain to people how tough it really was. In sports there are no guarantees. You can sacrifice everything your entire life and still not be good enough and I was neither a millionaire’s son nor had a fortune to inherit. The greatest thing I learnt from them, especially from my mother was that there is absolutely nothing beyond your reach. The ability to give 150 percent and achieving your goal is the greatest high you can get. Nothing comes close to that in self-satisfaction. She had two near fatal accidents, came out of both in a very tough manner having been in a coma and in the hospital for 9 months at a time and they told her that she wouldn’t be able to eat, write and drive and she did all three. This was in the late 60s and our tennis career was just starting at that time and her big thing every time she was in the hospital was to make sure that the tennis coach was being paid. I am not good at remembering things but there are certain things that are imprinted in your mind forever and they are very special people. It was 10 percent my luck to be born to the right parents and 90 percent their efforts that I am what I am today and when I look back there is nothing I would have changed.
I started traveling at a very young age and to this day it has been my greatest education. It has taught me so much.
What are the special memories that you have of your tennis years?
Prior to turning pro winning my first college tournament in India as a school kid, the first time I became Indian champion, the first time I played in the Davis Cup remain with me forever and what made it even more special was that Anand and I were able to do a lot of it together. For us growing up in India there were only two things that were a big deal- Davis cup and Wimbledon and playing Davis cup makes a man out of a boy very quickly and to do it as a teenager was an experience in itself. There is so much more pressure playing in Davis cup than in any other tournament especially in our part of the world where we did not have many international athletes. I always hoped the cricket team would do well and they hoped I would do well. There were a lot of pressures. Sunil Gavaskar and I used to talk all the time about it, but its much better today. But still we are a great country of incredible highs and lows.
To this day wherever I go and I do travel extensively, everywhere people ask me about specific matches and it’s amazing to me how much they remember and they’d say you killed my family’s weekend or you made us believe this can be done and I must say it’s both the Indians who lived in India and the Indians who lived overseas who inspired me to play longer than I would have.
How has tennis evolved over the years both in India and internationally?
Obviously over a period of time tennis has changed globally to a great extent and in India the game has changed drastically, both stylistically and in the equipment we use. The good news is that there is a lot more coverage on television, there is more money and sponsorship in the game today than there was 20 years ago and of course we were fortunate because we came in at the right time to play. We played with the greatest names in our generation and at the same time made a good living from it but we also had the camaraderie and education that is missing today. Tennis has become much more commercialized, much more of a business. Players are moving with their own trainers, coach and physiotherapists etc and are not spending time with the other guys, like we did.
We still haven’t been able to produce world champions from India in singles?
In India due to television and other media exposure the variety of networks were able to bring in a lot of companies for sponsorship and more guys think they can get into the sport and compete but the commitment of the individual, of the kids had not gone up that drastically. They still have to a great extent, the fear of risking an educational career. Sports at the professional level has to be a full time commitment. Today it’s very difficult to be able to go to full time school and then go out and compete with the rest of the world. The problem is you can’t tell your parents I want to dump school. It’s difficult. You need to go through school and college and by then is too late. Barely one percent of the guys who play on the international tour from other countries have an education. So are we willing to compete with that? I have to say don’t do anything half-heartedly. Go all out for it. We had started the Britannia Amritraj tennis academy 17 years ago-it was at a time when I was getting ready to quit and for me it would have been very disappointing not to have any one take over from where I left, and every time I played badly I would feel the urgency to groom a successor and every time I played well, I would think Oh I guess we can manage for a few years but the chairman of Britannia the late Rajan Pillai said we will fund a tennis academy and you run it. So we picked out the kids and once they joined us we gave them schooling, books, training in tennis, travel and videos and a home. It was a luxury home with a warden. My mother tasted every meal they ate. It was done very professionally. Rohit Rajpal, Leander Paes are products of the school, and we have a couple of junior Asian and Wimbledon champions and Davis cup members. A lot of kids who didn’t make it went on to universities in America on full scholarships; one kid even went to intern at the White House and is doing very well. It was a great give back. It was the only program of its kind in all of Asia in any sport.
So if your son Prakash said he wanted to quit school and concentrate on tennis what would you say?
I would have to say yes. You can’t take away an individual’s dream. You must never have to look back and say well I should have done this, or played for five more years. When I quit at 34-35 years I had done my bit and at 37 years I never felt I should have played for another couple of years. You should be able to leave the game with that feeling that you have done all you could have and there is nothing more you want to do. I gave it my best shot whether I was good enough or not.
Tell me more about Prakash. At 18 he is making waves in tennis just like you did!
Yes exactly 30 years later! Prakash is 18 and my younger son Vikram is 14. Both play tennis. How good they want to get and how good they will get is left entirely up to them and the set of circumstance that surrounds their development. I felt any kind of sport would be good for them because it will help them get admission to good colleges and that is exactly what happened. Prakash became good at tennis and got admission into a lot of good schools and eventually chose to go to USC because he wanted to be close to home. He has a great commitment and passion for the game and incredible work ethics. But as I have often said to him. ‘You have good news and bad news- the good news is that I am your father and the bad news is that I am your father. You will be constantly asked will you be as good as your father and people are going to ask me is he going to be as good as you? My answer is I hope he will be better. Both boys love basketball but when they played they realized that it’s a team sport so it becomes a little discretionary whether the coach wants to use you or not. I really had no problem with whichever sport they chose to play as long as they were involved in some sport. I think it’s a very important part of a child’s development.
International tennis no longer has the excitement that it generated during your time and later with Becker and Agassi.
The problem we have is that people no longer are able to relate with the individuals who play. A sport is developed or becomes exciting not just by a player’s performance but his personality and charisma. When Florence Griffith Joyner ran, or Tiger Woods plays or when Lance Armstrong rides its not just their winning but the delivering of a charismatic persona that makes you want to turn the TV on and watch. Unfortunately its not been there since Agassi or Becker after my generation. During my days Connors, Mcenroe and Borg were the top three but the rest of us were all very close and exciting to watch all the way down to the top twenty. Today if you asked tennis lovers to name the top 10 players they won’t be able to give you the names. But the quality of the game on the other hand has gone up tremendously so it is very tight at the top and you won’t see the same guy at the top for too long. I just read in the papers that because Tiger Woods didn’t win the British open in golf, the network lost close to 100 million dollars-that shows one individual of incredible quality and personality can make such a difference. We need to market our players well, because behind every player there is a story that needs to be promoted.
Tell me about your stint as President of the Association of Tennis Professionals. You did a lot in the five years you were there at the helm?
The challenges were great when I started in June of 1989. We got the support of the whole group and were able to make so many changes quickly. We created a very good environment, a good pension plan for the players, both past and present, a wonderful insurance program for players with disability and injuries and a wonderful university for players to go to so that kids like Prakash or anyone in that age group wanting to join the pro tour could go to this university and get a feel of what exactly it is to be out on the road, facing the public, facing journalists, and the sponsors, volunteers and how they should behave. It is very much in place and things are moving well though every 5-7 years things change and we adapt to it. The game has changed- we don’t quite have the Beckers and the Edbergs anymore and today with Agassi and Sampras at the tail end of their careers we have to focus on producing more star quality players, and to have a broader variety of guys to hang our hats on, because the charismatic superstars are the ones that drive the sport.
The UN recently appointed you a messenger of Peace. You mentioned that after going to Bhuj your entire perception about UN Organizations changed completely. Will you elaborate on that?
One always thought of United Nations as this global organization that did very little. It is wonderful to be recognized for the work you have done in the past and to be appointed by the Secretary General, was especially memorable for me but what they do in their various organizations is quite spectacular. They have about 60 agencies, and only when I went on the field in Bhuj did I see how UNICEF and WFB operated. It’s absolutely unbelievable. To be able to go into the middle of absolutely nowhere with nothing at your disposal and be able to perform so that those people have a better life- I couldn’t do that. The town itself was completely razed and I have never seen anything like that. We were traveling in two UN vehicles, and these kids were telling me there were probably bodies underneath this building and that building and these people from the UN were able to come in a deliver so many things. In my visits as ambassador of peace I got the sporting goods sponsors to give me stuff to give to the families and the kids to put a smile on their faces. I also went to refugee camps in Srilanka and it’s an amazing feeling. They were completely displaced by the war and I was able to take badminton rackets, footballs, and the kids were great. We cleared up a maidan and had electricity brought it and it’s amazing to see how well these agencies operate under the toughest of circumstances and we were able to make a difference.
I just participated in a general assembly on children with 100 heads of states attending in New York. The issue being discussed was what have you done for the plight of children globally. And they came out with a document, and discussed various issues like child labor, children affected by war etc and I said to one of the heads of states that it would be easy to get a consensus on something that involves children easily because everyone wants to see the children protected and do well and he said not at all –its amazing how people argue even on something like this. At what age are you considered a child? In some parts of the world at 12-13 they need to be breadwinners while at 15 in another country it is considered child abuse.
You are also involved in HIV/AIDS activism?
In India the issue is getting to be so out of hand and the education is not there. People still believe that you can take two tablets and you are cured. How do you fight that perception? There are a lot of things that we in India sweep under the rug and it is really important to bring these out in the open. We as well known personalities can make it an issue and highlight it and we can help raise money, get the media to focus on it, to make a point with the local govt. because we are really doing it out of commitment for a cause and not for monetary benefits.
So what more is there in the cards?
I don’t have any lofty goals, or dreams for myself. Very clearly I want to be able to see the youngsters in India and abroad playing much more of a major role in the development of our nation. There are so many social and economic problems that arise and its not always that the older people can fix it because they come from an older generation and a different mindset. People in my age group who came here and did well will always be tied to India, no matter where they are from but I hope the younger generation born and brought up here, no matter what their cultural background will continue to have the global perspective that this country has given you a lot but do not be diluted by the worst of it. It is easy to do that and go off the track and believe that you are western. I think the connection needs to be made. The West is to be imitated on the good stuff and its possible to do that. Broaden your knowledge, expand your horizons but don’t degenerate. Cherish your roots.
I also want to see the eradication of credible issues I see around the world which affect children all over the world and we aren’t able to arrest it in a great manner. Anything that has to do with children which had negative connotations drives me up the wall completely. The reverse also is true- to be able to have the same sort of feeling towards the older generation which has taught us so much.
I think the world’s toughest thing, after doing every job that I have possibly done till today, is to be a good parent. I want to be able to spend enough time with my parents because I know they have given me a lot. I still can’t imagine how they were able to do it. For my wife Shyamala raising the boys single-handedly while I was traveling was never easy while I tried to be there whenever I could. To help and guide them correctly to be what they want to be is the greatest challenge in the world.