Chennai: Indian tennis legend Vijay Amritraj said here Sunday that the country need to develop quality singles players if they wants to be in the elite group in the world. India recently lost to Serbia in the Davis World Group Play-off tie 0-4 and Amritraj felt the country were lacking in the number of quality singles players.
“The focus has to be on singles for India. We need four good singles players. There is no point just having good doubles players. Since we do not have enough number of quality singles players, we are not being able to qualify for the elite group,” Amritraj told this agency.
India will now compete in a 24-team qualifying event (home and away format) in February next year to qualify for the 18-team Davis Cup finals.
Talking about players like Ramkumar Ramanathan and Yuki Bhambri, he said they have done well but need to work on their fitness.
“Yuki has done well. The problem is that he is not fit enough to play a full season. Similarly, Ramkumar did well in some tournaments, reached the final at Newport, but needs to be a lot fitter,” Amritraj pointed out.