Sweden's Thomas Enqvist today said every era has its own set of heroes and it was wrong to say that current generation of tennis players are not entertaining to watch.
Pat Cash had recently said that the type of grinding baseline tennis that current top player Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic play, lacks skill.
"I don't say it is not entertaining to watch this generation of players. I love watching the old clips where Bjorn Borg played John McEnroe in the finals but I also enjoy watching Nadal and Djokovic play each other, which is quite amazing. I have heroes from all eras, and I respect them all," he told PTI in an exclusive interview here.
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"They (Nadal and Djokovic) are not all-round players like Boris Becker or Pete Sampras. They were baseline players and they were also attacking players and they could do it against baseliners like Mats Wilander or Andre Agassi. Now that was entertainment. You never knew which way it was going to go."
Enqvist said the players of yesteryear including Borg, McEnroe, Jimmy Connors and Vijay Amritraj, played as impressively as Nadal, Roger Federer and Djocovic play.
"All eras have heroes - Borg, McEnroe, Connors, Vijay were part of that. What they did in 70s was as impressive as Nadal, Federer and Djocovic are doing today," he said.
Enqvist said he is very happy to be part of Champions Tennis League to promote and popularise the game in cricket-crazy India.
"I was here in Kolkata for Davis Cup in 1996 and I won my first Indian Open in Delhi. India has a very good tennis culture. I am happy to be back after so many years to boost and popularise the sport in India," he said.
"We, in Sweden, also have a very good tennis culture, but there is a big competition coming from football and ice hockey. In India, cricket is giving a big challenge, and this scenario to play in CTL is good to popularise tennis - that way the league is good," Enqvist added.
