Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi may be grabbing all the headlines but there's a baseline shift happening in Indian women's tennis. Unnoticed. At last week's Asia Oceania round of Federation Cup, (the women's equivalent of the Davis Cup) in Osaka, the Indian trio of Nirupama Vaidyanathan, Sai Jailakshmy and Manisha Malhotra thundered a few aces upsetting highly rated Thailand and just losing to Japan.
Whizzing through Delhi en route to Europe, where she will be playing the next two months, India's first woman tennis profesessional, Nirupama is all smiles. The Fed Cup was good match practice as was the $10,000 Jindal ITF tournament in Delhi before that, which she won. Proof, also, that she is on a strong comeback trail. Nirupama was forced out of action for more than a month with an ankle injury when she slipped on court during the qualifying matches of the Australian Open. In tennis terms, that means at least ten tournaments missed, and her world ranking slid from 130 to 256. For someone like Nirupama, whose daily bread comes from tennis, that also translates into loss of money. Predictably, she is careful about where she puts her feet now. "I can't afford any more injuries," she wails as the photographer asks her to jump over high railings to pose for pictures in the empty stadium. Yet, she sportingly complies.
In fact, India's top woman star has no hangups and comes through as a chatty, friendly person. Her flight out of Delhi is due at 2.40 am. At 5.00 pm, as she hurtles into the DLTA stadium, where she's staying, Nirupama is way behind schedule. "Sorry. I had to meet five people today and you are the last. And everywhere, I have been getting delayed," she apologises, charmingly contrite. As we enter her room and she notices its disorganised state, Nirupama realises she has a job ahead packing. Yet, once launched into her favourite subject, Nirupama has all the time in the world. "People sometimes ask me, `you play tennis but what else do you do?' I am stumped. That bothers me," she confesses, adding that it provoked her into joining a correspondence course studying English litrature. "Of course, it's a different matter that I am not giving it my best shot, " she says.
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When she had finished her Class 12, Nirupama was faced with the same dilemma that most teenagers are afflicted with: what she should do. The choices before her were to join University in the US, (the easy way out - most good tennis players in India join school in the US since they can play and study); join college in home town Coimbatore, or spurn education altogether and become a tennis pro.
Characteristically, Nirupama took on the toughest choice - she decided to turn pro, treading ground where no Indian woman had gone before. Today, at 23, and three gruelling years in the circuit later, Nirupama still cannot get over the enormity of her decision. "When I was playing sub juniors, I would have been the last person anyone would have thought would take this decision - I was from a conservative family, from a small place. There were other talented girls with much more money than I who were playing on the circuit. Yet, strangely enough, it was I who became a professional," she says.
Life on the circuit, according to Nirupama, is not at all glamourous. It is tough, lonely and fiercely competitive. There is nor room for long term friendships. Homesickness can be acute when you are living out of suitcases for months in strange , unfamiliar places. Even Wimbledon, that ultimate mecca for any tennis star, leaves Nirupama cold. "Wimbledon is not so great when you are not within the top few. People can be so rude. I prefer the Australian and US open where there is more warmth," she says.
On the odd occasion, her father, who has taught her all her tennis, does join her, but that's too rare for comfort. New York, where brother K V Ganesh coaches, is then like a second home and Nirupama welcomes the chance to play there. For a girl from a middle class background, life on the circuit is also enormously expensive, as Nirupama points, ticking off expenses - airfare, hotels, entry fees, equipment.
Yet, with practically no sponsorships to speak of, she had inched her way up to a ranking of 130, before her injury - beating the likes of Magdaleena Maleeva, Janet Lee and Sabine Hack. Perhaps Nirupama's biggest achievement is that she has inspired other Indian women to venture out. Manisha Malhotra joined the circuit a year ago and is currently ranked 340. Sai has begun travelling too, ranked in the 400s. A crop of young teenagers, Radhika Tulpule and Sonal Phadke, are currently making waves at home with Tulpule (in the reserves for the Fed Cup) planning to try and qualify for the French Open juniors.
Their performance has also forced the All India Tennis Association to take action and start a few women's tournaments in the country. These $10,000 events have attracted East European and Asian players - providing competition of sorts for Indian players eager to upgrade their standards. However, compared to the men's circuit in India which has the $4,30,000 Gold Flake tournament attracting some of the top ten world players, there's miles to go yet.
Corporate sponsors appear uninterested although Nirupama tells you how many individuals - sometimes totally unrelated with tennis - have read about her and just donated cash."For them, it's a big amount and it's really generous of them even if it won't go far - maybe just a ticket." IMG which has taken her on, hasn't got any endorsements so far..
Perhaps her part-time job as a columnist (she wrote on the Fed Cup for the Indian Express) might be more rewarding. Hoping for more such assignments, Nirupama has already acquired a laptop. "In any case, I hope to become a journalist later," she confesses. Or better still, a television commentator since there are already many women sports reporters. She has had first hand experience of that at the Gold Flake Open, sharing the mike with Vijay Amritraj. "He told me to be completely natural. That helped," she says.
For now, Nirupama is aiming her sights on doing well in Europe. First stop is Holland, then on to Portugal and England - all serving as a good experience before the Grand Slam French Open.