Vijay Amritraj is a man of many talents. A successful player, broadcaster, commentator, administrator — the list is endless. It then came as no surprise when the Indian great was inducted into the Tennis Hall of Fame (contributor category) in December 2023. In an interview with Sportstar, the 70-year-old speaks about a recognition that “highlights his career from the time he was 7 to 70.”
What does the award mean to you?
First and foremost, the fact is that I played this game for a long time. I’ve been very blessed to have played the Davis Cup for 20 years, at the highest level, singles and doubles, and led India to two Davis Cup finals (1974 and 1987). I have played with a fever and injuries after surgery too... The adrenaline kind of gets you to do all these things. More so when you had a very, very strong connection to the Davis Cup and Wimbledon and how Indians felt about these two [competitions]. On court, you’re always an Indian, and that Tricolour is going to come out, and the anthem is going to be played. To me, that mattered just as much as winning. And I carried that [feeling] post my playing career as well.
In 2022, I was awarded the Golden Achievement Award (for 2021) by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and the International Tennis Hall of Fame (ITHF). It was for those who contributed to the sport [in administration, promotion, education, etc.]. That was a big occasion, and I don’t think a player had won that before. And there were a lot of people who felt that I should have been in the Hall of Fame earlier. But it doesn’t quite work that way. It’s more a question of how your peers, past players, writers, journalists, and administrators who vote feel. If you have made a difference to the sport, represented your country and the sport with integrity, doing things for the game worldwide. The [Hall of Fame] award kind of highlights that, and it came a day before my 70th birthday. So, it was a very, very special present.
You have joined the likes of John Barrett (former player and Wimbledon commentator), Nick Bollettieri (celebrated coach), and other illustrious names. How does that feel?
The contributor category is very, very special to me. It is not easily given. You have to be in this for a long time and earn your right by making a difference to the sport by either writing about it, being on television or in administration, and so forth. Needless to say, my tennis career was the first part of it, and my contribution continued thereafter. But all of it together is what enhances the package. From the time I played for the first time overseas, there was no Indian professional athlete at that time. So, the things that I did reflected on all Indians. I came from a unique place because tennis was a sport of the West at the time. So, all those things mattered.
Good friends: Bjorn Borg and Vijay Amritraj exchange pleasantries on the sidelines of the Bengaluru Open ATP Challenger event in 2023. | Photo Credit: K. MURALI KUMAR
Looking back at your playing career, you reached two Davis Cup finals, made singles quarters at Slams, won more than a dozen titles on the Tour, and were in the top-20. When you started as a child, did you ever imagine achieving any of these?
Oh, my goodness! Far from it. The dream was to be able to get healthy and go to school. I was not healthy and was a bad student. My mother sat in class for me to take notes and teach me in the hospital. It was a great challenge for my parents. Let me put it this way: I always told them, ‘If you didn’t have me, you would have thought parenting was easy.’ The aspect of a dream came through only after I started to believe that I could win. I won my first tournament as a schoolboy at 13 and a half, and then I won the National Championships, beating [Ramanathan] Krishnan in the final (1972). Those were two landmark matches that made me believe. One year later, I was in the top-10 at 19, beating [Rod] Laver and [Jimmy] Connors. So, it all rapidly came about.
What drove you to be the player you were and the person you are?
The one thing that drove me was that I wanted to get healthy enough to do the things that normal kids would do — go to school, play with friends, fly kites, and all of that. But it was interesting to see what drove my parents, especially my mother. They could have decided, ‘Listen, let’s make him good enough to just go to school, pass his exam, and eventually get a job’. But that wasn’t the case. They wanted to also not leave me behind because Anand [Amritraj], the older boy, was healthy, first in class, and he won the junior [tennis] championships pretty early. So, they didn’t want me to be left behind.
And as talent or luck would have it, I won the Nationals and the Asian Championships and reached the quarterfinals at Wimbledon and then the US Open back-to-back (1973). I ended up beating Laver at the [U.S.] Open, which put India firmly on the global tennis map. That was the big one in the Open Era (1968 onwards). This also made the West believe I was a force to be reckoned with. I did reach four quarterfinals at the Grand Slams, two at Wimbledon, and two at the [U.S.] Open. I made two Davis Cup finals; the only occasions India has been there in the Open Era. All these things mattered a lot to me.
Sepia-tinted in memory: Vijay Amritraj competing against the defending champion, Bjorn Borg of Sweden, in the men’s singles second round match at Wimbledon, in London, on June 26, 1979. | Photo Credit: Getty Images
The other hats you have donned... like helming the Vijay Amritraj Foundation (VAF), the Britannia Amritraj Tennis (BAT) academy, being the president of the ATP Player Council (1989–93), a tournament director, commentator, and now the president of the Tamil Nadu Tennis Association (TNTA)... How did you manage all of these, and where does the energy come from?
When I finished my last Wimbledon (1990), I started doing television right away when tennis broadcasts started in India. It was a new challenge to be able to feed an audience that hadn’t seen it before and to be able to share with them my thoughts and what the feelings were of a tennis player at Wimbledon. But at the same time, keep it entertaining so that [even] people who didn’t like tennis would want to watch. I used the Dan Maskell phrase ‘less is more’ and didn’t go on talking because it was a visual and not like radio. That went on for 25 years.
I also wanted to replicate what my parents did for me [by helping] when I was young. And so when the United Nations (UN) asked me to serve as a Messenger of Peace, I served just under seven years for Secretary General Kofi Annan.
That opened my eyes further to what the world was and what the UN agencies did. I went to places I never thought I would visit because they weren’t in Paris, London, or New York all the time. When my term at the UN ended, I started my foundation [VAF] to be able to help the needy in India.
In the meantime, I served as president [ATP Player Council] when we were building the ATP Tour as we know it today. Myself, Larry Scott, Tim Mayotte, Mark Miles, and all of us. These gave me a feeling of serving the sport that had given me so much, starting with my health.
About the BAT academy in Chennai....
Let me tell you how that got started. A very dear friend of mine was the late Rajan Pillai, who was chairman of Britannia. I was on the board of Britannia because of him. Whenever I had a good year [results-wise], we didn’t talk about the future of tennis in India.
When I had a bad year, Rajan would be like, ‘Hey, what are we going to do after you?’ He was a great lover of the game. One fine day, he said, ‘Why don’t Britannia and you get together and let’s start something that is only an excellence programme? You design it and pick the guys; Britannia will fund it fully’. I said I could only do it if my mother agreed to be in charge. Mom said she would, and that’s how we started in 1985.
And in that first set of eight kids was Leander Paes. It’s amazing that as we sit today, Leander is in the player category at the Hall of Fame. It is like doubling the joy for me because he came out of a programme I helped start. For five years, he was with us [at BAT]. He won junior Wimbledon when he was with us. So, I feel even more bullish about what we’ve achieved this year at the Hall of Fame.
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