Mental and physical attribute the main difference between top 10 and 100, says Leander Paes
Veteran Indian tennis player Leander Paes has stated that the biggest difference between a player in the top 10 world ranking and in the top 100 is often the physical and mental attribute. The 46-year-old has also praise the Tennis Premier League for giving chances to the young blood.
With Indian tennis players like Prajnesh Gunneswaran, Sumit Nagal, and Ramkumar Ramanathan making it big in world rankings and coming closer to the top 100, the question has always been how closer they are to the world beaters. And Paes has an answer to it, who has been of the opinion that physical and mental attributes play the differentiator.
“The real difference between the top 10 and 100 in the world is the physical and mental attributes. Everybody can hit a serve decently well, everybody can hit a forehand and backhand well but the difference is the confidence in winning, physically and mentally - it is a big difference,” Paes said, reported Sportstar.
The biggest highlight of Indian tennis’ recent history has surely been Nagal taking on 20-time Grand Slam winner Roger Federer. And though the youngster eventually lost the match, he surely turned heads with his first set win of 4-6 against Swiss maestro. Paes was all praise for the player as well hailing his consistency.
“To qualify for US Open is fantastic, I have been there myself, to see him do that and to see him play Roger Federer on the main court is a very daunting task and I thought he handled himself very well. Also, to see Sumit come into the Davis Cup team, seeing him play on the pro tour in Challenger where he recently did well. That kind of consistent performance is what he needs,” Leander stated.
With the second edition of the Tennis Premier League scheduled to be held from December 12-16, top Indian players like Zeeshan Ali, Nanadan Bal and Aditya Sachdev would be seen mentoring various teams consisting star players like Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan, Saketh Myneni, Purav Raja, Vishnu Vardhan, Ankita Raina, Pranjala Yadlapalli, Rutujua Bhosale and Riya Bhatia taking the court.
Paes couldn’t emphasize any more upon the importance of the tournament on youngsters. "In tennis, it’s very important to have youngsters coming to play with national stars. This year, I am very happy to have the Davis Cup players - professional players of the country, and India's top seeded women's player coming to play in the league," he added.
