Memories of another day

Memories of another day

(1)SO CLOSE YET SO FAR -- 1952 and '54: The Indian Thomas Cup squad twice came close to making history when they fell one win short during the Zonals and thus their dream of playing the finals against Malaysia was blown. In 1952 they lost to the United States and in 1954 Denmark proved a spoke.
(2)FABLED WIN -- 1963: Nandu Natekar enthralled everyone with his fine win over the then defending All-England champion Wattanasin (Thailand) for the title at the KIng's Cup.
(3)`THE WALL' BLOCKS ALL -- 1965: Dinesh `The Wall' Khanna or `The Returning Machine' bagged the honour of becoming the first Indian to bag the inaugural Asian Confederation Championship at Lucknow and it was the same year that Mumbai's Gautam Thakkar won the ABC Junior crown.
(4)COMMONWEALTH SUCCESSES -- 1978, '82, '98: Prakash set the tone in Edmonton (Canada) only to be repeated by the Late Syed Modi at Brisbane (Australia) and then after a gap of 16 years had the men's team pick up silver and the evesbronze at Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia).
(5)WIN AGAINST ODDS -- 1980: A win in the first British Masters in 1979, a loss in the same year to Liem Swie King for the All-England crown spurred Prakash Padukone make history at the Royal Albert Hall, London next year with the All-England title. The organisers scheduled Prakash's next to a court that staged the mixed doubles final.
(6)WORLD TITLES TOO! -- 1981, '83: With the Chinese in full steam, Prakash lay his hands on the first Alba World Cup, then annexed the first Indian Masters prize money meet at Pune beating an agile and stubborn Han Jian of China and topped it all with a bronze in the World Championship in Copenhagen.
(7)ASIAN GAMES DOUBLES MEDAL -- '82: The crack combination of Pradeep Gandhe and Leroy D'Sa bagged bronze to give the home crowd (Delhi) something to cheer about, in 1982.
(8)WOMEN POWER -- 1981, '96: The best ever came when Ami Ghia reached the finals of the first Masters in Pune, then Aparna Popat hadher share of glory making it to the final of the World Junior Championships, Copenhagen in 1996 Unfortunately the coveted crown eluded them. Aparna went on to gain an all-time best world ranking of No 17.
(9)OTHER MAJORS: Ajay Gandhi's 1987 triumph at the Junior Wimbledon meet; Nikhil Kanetkar's narrow miss of becoming the first Indian to win a Grand Prix meet in 15 years when he lost the US Open finals in 1999; Pullela Gopichand's ranked No 27 in the world success with wins in the French, Toulouse and Scottish Opens and Sachin Ratti's New Zealand Open win.