Need the likes of Dravids and Gopichands in tennis for the sport to progress, says Leander Paes

Indian tennis legend Leander Paes, who is on the last leg of his career, has spoken out on what tennis in India needs in order to grow. Paes said that the sport needs to have people like former cricketer Rahul Dravid and former badminton player Pullela Gopichand to help produce young talent.

Talking on the sidelines of the third edition of the Maharashtra Open, Paes told ANI, "If I look at some of past players of India who I have tremendous respect for, there are players like Rahul Dravid, Pullela Gopichand who have trained younger generation to the highest level."

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Under Gopichand’s coaching, India have produced two Olympic

medallists. And as far as Rahul Dravid is concerned, he has been coaching the

India A cricket team and the India U19 team, both of which are one of the best

junior cricket teams in the world. India U19, under Dravid, reached the finals

of the U19 World Cup for the third successive time two days ago.

"We really need to reinvent tennis because competition for sport in India is huge now with all the leagues, not just IPL. Table Tennis, boxing, wrestling, badminton, Kabaddi are becoming huge in our country," said Paes.

"Tennis in India needs an energised injection to be infused. We need to attract lot more kids. Nowadays so many distractions are there for them and sport and tennis is a great way to channelise them," he added.

Paes, who announced in January that he will be retiring after the 2020 season, also heaped praise on Ramkumar Ramanathan and Purav Raja, to whom Paes and his partner Matthew Ebden lost in the men’s doubles quarter finals in the Maharashtra Open.

"They were playing amazingly well with 85 percent first serve win. That was unbelievable. They were on a roll, everything they touched there was gold," he said.