At its Executive Committee meeting here today, AITA have decided to host at least 20 tournaments for both men and women in a year, besides holding one more tournament each in the Satellite, Challenger and ATP category.

Anil Khanna, AITA's executive council member and architect of its new programme, said the priority was to increase the number of players making it to the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) rankings. He said Spain had most players in the top 100.

``We should follow Spain's example and have many players in the top 100, not just Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi. In the next few years we should have one more player in top 100, two in the top 500 and at least five among the top 1,000 ATP rankings.''

Khanna said that AITA will give priority to hosting several Satellite and Challenger events. The Association will also ask each of the 20affiliated states to host a tournament apiece, making up the complement of 20 for the year for men and women. For this purpose the parent body will aid each state unit with a grant of Rs 1.5 lakh each.

In addition, AITA will bear half the cost for staging an international event except in Maharashtra, Delhi, Bengal and Tamil Nadu who will not be rendered the subsidy.

Plans are also afoot to appoint a national coach who will monitor the progress of some players. ``We have four or five names in our minds and will be announcing the national coach very shortly,'' said Khanna.

The national coach will be present in each of the domestic tournaments and will guide players and keep them focussed. ``Our priority is the Davis and Federation Cups. We must have a wealth of talent representing the country in these tournaments,'' said Khanna.

Regarding women players who had written to the parent body requesting more tournaments, the AITA have plans to host four Women's Tennis Professionals events between July andDecember 1998. They have also asked AITA to host a $ 75,000 International Tennis Federation (ITF) event, most probably in November this year.

The AITA have announced financial assistance to promising player Uzma Khan. She will be helped to the tune of Rs 1 lakh. Nirupama Vaidyanathan had earlier recieved a similar aid.

Regarding the junior programme, Khanna said that AITA has requested ITF for more tournaments in India. ``The basic idea was to have more players gaining points,'' said Khanna. AITA have requested the ITF to upgrade tournaments from 5 to 2 or 3. For the under-16 and under-14 age categories, the AITA will hold Zonal competitions which will be open to players from Asian countries. Khanna explained: ``This effort for juniors will help them gain more Asian Tennis Federation points which in turn will help them gain direct entries to tournaments in Asia.

There are expected to be 32 Zonal tournaments for juniors (16 each for under-16 and under-14) spread over a period of 16 weeks.

Adevelopment fund for the Davis and Federation Cup teams will also be set up. These funds will be utilised for 4-5 players to be selected on merit.

The AITA has also decided to grant Rs five lakhs to each of the four coaching centres it has adopted in Chennai, Bangalore, Calcutta and Mumbai (run by Ramesh Krishna, CGK Bhupathy, Akhtar Ali and Gaurav Natekar), Khanna said.