Ilija Bozoljac, winner of the Kolkata leg of the ATP Challenger Tour events in India, today rued lack of enough number of tournments in one region, saying it becomes too costly for the players to travel country after country to play.
The Serbian blasted the scheduling of the Challenger events for the 2014 season.
"They have messed up the schedule of the tournament. There's nothing to play. There is one in Asia next month, there's nothing in Europe and in US we cannot get in because of the ranking. Then a week after, there's one in Russia and nothing else. It's like we have to travel all over. It costs money.
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"It's not like 1-2-3 as in India. Last year by this time there were about four tournaments so the guys could spread. It's really really hard," Bozoljac said.
With world No 2 in Novak Djokovic, Serbia is a force to reckon with in world tennis but Bozoljac said they were not a tennis nation not very long ago as it's a poor country and they did not have any facility.
"Now you're looking at Serbia as a tennis nation. We were not a tennis nation. It was really hard for us especially myself. I did not have any support to make a team, to pay for fitness coach and coach...
"It was really hard for us. Serbia is really a poor country. Maybe India is giving a little bit more to the players. Luckily a couple of guys came and put tennis in front. When I was growing up and had my best ranking of 100 nobody wanted to give me sponsors. I had nothing," he said.
But now things have changed as there was a boom time after Djokovic's rise.
"I remember five seven years ago our Davis Cup captain said we had a huge problem, we don't have any tennis players. But Djokovic got good and everybody got good with him and all the younger guys are coming up. But all of a sudden there was boom, after one guy got in...," he said.
The Serbian, who scripted a remarkable comeback from being 0-6, 0-3 down to oust top seed Aleksandr Nedovyesov in the semis yesterday, was back at his best as he downed a consistent Evgeny Donskoy 6-1, 6-1 to clinch the title today.
