The big moment is coming closer. On Thursday, 18th July 2024, the three inductees into the International Tennis Hall of Fame were presented to the press. This date was held quite early, already on 10:00, an hour before the matches on the grounds of the Infosys Hall of Fame Open 2024 began. Of course, I wanted to have a listen to the words of Leander Paes, Vijay Amritraj (both India) and Richard Evans (United Kingdom). I already introduced you to them in my preview posting. Here are some snaps and a report.

This posting comes with 140 major size pictures in a dedicated event section of the sports gallery.

 

The ATP Tour Coverage from Newport is done in collaboration with

 

 

International Tennis Hall of Fame – Inductees Press Conference

The press conference has been truly inspiring. All three gave a lot of dedication to the sports. They all also shared how they got into the tennis. Leander stated that at his very first step into tennis, turning down a soccer career, he in fact ran into Richard Evans and Vijay Amritraj (quotes in bullet points)

• On the 12th of May in 1986, I gave up a European football scholarship and I moved down to what was known as Madras back then, to the Britannia Amritraj Tennis Academy. On the 12th of May, 1986, both these two young men on my right who I had the tremendous honor to sit on the stage with, were there on that day. Vijay and his wonderful parents welcomed me into an academy, gave all of us boys an opportunity that was very special back iin India, and one is so grateful to Mr. and Mrs. Amritraj, to Vijay for giving us this great opportunity. I did my holy cccommunion with his mother.
  On the 12th of May, 1986, Richard Evans was there. He was writing Vijay’s autobiography. I walked up to him as an 11-year-old and I stuck my hand out and I said, Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Evans, I’m Leander Paes.
  He goes, what are you here for? I was, I want to emulate my father in winning an Olympic medal.
  On the 12th of May, 1986, Mr. Evans turned to me and said to this young 11-year-old kid, If you work hard enough, you might even get into the International Tennis Hall of Fame.

 

Evans Reminding of the Early Days of Professional Tennis

Evans, however, reminded of the early days in professional tennis, he was able to be much closer to the players:

• I came into tennis very fortunately at that amazing era of Australian domination, helped by their coach Harry Hopman, the unbelievable array of talent from Lew Hoad to Frank Sedgman, to Ashley Cooper, Ken Rosewall, John Newcombe, Tony Roche. They were all brilliant champions.
  I was their age, so I had this huge advantage of being able to travel with a group of players who had, apart from Hopman who stayed home, there were no coaches, no managers, no agents, no wives or girlfriends, except for odd occasion, traveling the world. You can imagine the Aussies knew how to travel the world. They knew how to enjoy themselves on court, very competitive, and off court less competitive.

Vijay also pointed out the importance of family:

• My mother told me that, You’re going to be the best in this country and you’re going to play around the world. Indians are going to come watch you play in different parts of the world. It’s hard to believe that they themselves are flying blind, not knowing where tennis was going to lead us.

 

Dedicated to the Work of the Tennis Hall of Fame

Especially Leander showed a strong dedication that his  induction will also bring him to a mission and support the sports globally.

• I would like to partner you and collaborate with you in bettering the lives of young boys and girls around the world. I would like to take the International Tennis Hall of Fame around the world, to motivate young kids, to learn a vocation, to learn a skill on how to educate themselves better, on how to earn a living and put food on the table and roofs over our head.

However, there were also critical moments. Richard Evans for example reminded that he was in Florida and the local newspaper had a three page feature about a senior golf tournament. On the bottom of the page, there was a short note that Andre Agassi retired. Tennis must not loose his relevance, despite being one of the few sports being played in any country being member of the United Nations.

Evans also reminded that there is a huge gap.

• As Charlie Pasarell has said: Tennis doesn’t punch its weight in the marketplace. It does in many ways, the four Grand Slams, four of the biggest sporting events on earth, and they all make a fortune, and that’s wonderful, but it doesn’t go down deep enough.

No Tournaments in Central Asia and Africa

Vijay reminded that, outside Middle East and China, there is no WTA and ATP Tournament left. Africa is lacking as well. Tennis majorly concentrates on North America and Europe:

• We had tournaments in Manilla, Hong Kong, Bangkok Singapore, Ho Chi Minh, including Teheran. Today we have none of that. We have no tournament in Africa. Perhaps Marrakesh is on its last legs, perhaps. The tournament we had in India that I brought there 25 years ago, we had it, was successful, moved it to Pune after Chennai, now that event is out of India as well. A country like India doesn’t have a tour event at all. We were lucky to get a WTA event after two years ago, due to COVID and hina couldn’t run it, leased an event.My whole point here is unless we have crown jewels, a 250 or our part of the world would suffice, would be great. I hink there’s enough room in India to have 250s in two or hree cities. We have enough cities in Asia that want to have 250s, no question about it.

Even way after the press conference, people were talking about the truly inspirational chat, which lasted over one hour. Something which I haven’t felt like that in press conferences too often.

 

International Tennis Hall of Fame Museum – Inductees Exhibits

The Museum of the International Tennis Hall of Fame also shared some exhibits about the three inductees. I felt that this post is a good opportunity to share some views of that. The most striking one is of course the Hall of Fame itself, in which a whole display is dedicated to the three people who influenced the sports of tennis. Please excuse me that I have a certain focus on Leander Paes. If you ever read my Ode to my Superhero posting, you know that this legend is absolutely special to me. I put them in Pictured Story format, as they are not included in the gallery:

However, there are also some other displays, in which the three inductees are popping up in the neat museum. They majorly feature Leander:

 

Tennis Hall of Fame 2024 Inductee Press Conference – The Gallery

As part of the 2024 Infosys Hall of Fame Open section of my sports gallery, there is a designated major size picture gallery with 140 pictures of the press conference at

• 2024-07-18 Tennis Hall of Fame Inductee Press Conference

 

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