Anil Nayar Praises Indian Squash Players

Mumbai, Feb 13 (PTI) Indo-American squash legend Anil Nayar on Thursday heaped praise on Indias squash players but at the same time stressed on the need to have a consistent coach, who is stationed at onecentre to produce more talent.

He said India has a lot of sporting talent.

I think the current Indian squash players mens and womens -- are up there (along with others). They are well represented in world championship.

"They are able to go overseas, practice, get professional training. They have high standards, but they can get a lot better.

"We can get lot more better players if we really had a good coach, who (is) consistently (stationed) at one centre, Nayar told PTI.

Currently, India has players like Saurav Ghosal, Mahesh Mangaonkar, Vikram Malhotra, Ramit Tandon, Abhishek Pradhan, Aditya Jagtap in the mens circuit, while the womens circuit comprises players like Joshana Chinappa, Tanvi Khanna, Urvashi Joshi, Aishwarya Khubchandani.

We have players who are really smart, stratergic. We just need to get to that level, said Nayar, who gave the example ofchief national badminton coach P Gopichand to buttress his point.

Gopichand, who runs a badminton academy in Hyderabad, has groomed several well-known players, including Olympics medalists P V Sindhu and Saina Nehwal.

Nayar was in the city for the launch of the book Lucky, a memoir on his journey, which is penned by his spouse Jean Nayar.

We need to kind of get to the state-of-art right now. We dont have that. Once you create an environment of excellence, you will get good players.

"We have a lot of talent, undoubtedly, added Nayar, who was the first Indian player to win the Drysdale Cup in London in 1965 and was also inducted into the US Squash Hall of Fame.

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