Starting today, Roland Garros sees action from the Junior boys and girls circuit. These kids [it feels strange to call them kids when one day in the future, I might root for them] present a picture of the long term horizon of tennis from where we stand now.
Most of the junior ITF participants now, are relatively unknown but one day, they when they make it big in the ATP and the WTA arena, their Junior achievements will be taken into account too.
Coming from a country which positively idolises cricket to the point of ignoring other sporting activities, I know how important a Yuki Bhambri is; though sadly he has withdrawn from the event due to ankle injury, but should contest in the other slam events in the season ahead.
Yuki represents a hope to us, that one day in the future we will have a Men's Singles Grand Slam champion from India and make us all proud; he represents a chunk of expectation that India needn't just depend on its cricketers to thrust it in the world of international sports.
And if it's Yuki Bhambri to India, then it's a Grigor Dimitrov to Bulgaria and a Laura Robson to Great Britain. Different players-but underlying the same belief and anticipation.
It's actually a never ending process; the juniors today look to emulate idols like a Federer or a Rafa who in turn looked towards a Sampras or an Edberg during their learning days. In the future, when the current juniors make it to the global platform-they will in turn inspire many more aspirants in their wake.
The game thrives and the fans get to see a never ending phenomena. "The show must go on" is a very popular saying and the Junior level participation in the sport of tennis is another example of it.
Interestingly, predicting a winner among the Juniors is like including every one's name as a dark horse; no one really knows when an upset is likely to occur and who is most likely to cause it.
There can be another reason for it; since most of these potential prodigies are oblivious except a given few, no fan perhaps is able to predict the true strength and weakness of a junior level player and since the channels broadcasting the slams don't really show junior matches, it complicates matters further.
In today's highly informative scenario, when we have multiple sports channels, it sort of becomes these kids' prerogative to allow their talent to be mapped by zillions of pairs of eyes; it would be an encouragement and a morale booster to have them trained on them.
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