New Delhi, May 8 (PTI) Determined to change the face of Asian tennis in his tenure, Yuriy Polskiy, the youngest ATF President, has exhorted the best players from the region to compete in Asian events before travelling abroad and has set his sights on developing the game in smaller tennis-playing nations such as Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Syria.
The 36-year-old Polskiy had won the Asian Tennis Federation (ATF) presidential elections in December last year on the back of reforms in his home country Kazakhstan and wants to use his trouble-shooting experience to help nations struggling to popularise the game.
Polskiy is clear that Asia’s strong players need to compete in their own events which should help upcoming players with exposure and learning, and a robust Asian tour and programme for U14 players with considerable financial support is the need of the hour.
He is also clear that ATF would work in tandem with ATP rather than competing with them and create a viable Asian tour with lots of tournaments in close vicinity that will reduce the travel expenses of players from the region.
Asia has only six players in the world’s top-100 and it worries Polskiy.
“Asian tennis needs the participation of the best Asian players in Asian tournaments, because, quite often, they go to Europe, they go to North America, South America and it means that the local Asian players don’t have a chance to compete with the best,” Polskiy told
Source: PTI News
