India's tennis great - 007's aide - storms into town

It was one of those hot summer afternoons, not as hot as Madras but definitely hotter than the California sunshine this time of the year.

As other foreign players took to the comfort of the Rizal Memorial Tennis Center's air-conditioned rooms or rode back to their hotels, father and son stayed in the heat of the sun and worked out for two more hours past lunch time at Court no. 5.

The boy was a 16-year-old tennis player, hoping to make it someday to the big time, just like his father, a tennis legend from the cow-dung courts of Madras and the green grass of Wimbledon.

The man was 45 years old, who does not command much attention now but did so on all corners of the world until the 80s as the "Madras Monsoon", a prominent fixture of the four grandslam tournaments and at one time the daring aide of Agent 007 in one of the 80s' James Bond movies.

To start with, the son, Prakash Amritraj, had already lost in the singles, but Prakash and his father, Indian legend Vijay Amritraj, were staying behind for a few more days in Manila because the boy was competing in the doubles finals.

"I'm not in a hurry with my son. I don't think kids should be pressured to achieve because every kid is different. Some kids are fully developed at different times, some at 16 years, others at 18 or at 21. You have to work with each particular child," said Amritraj, who at 18, was quarterfinalist in the Wimbledon and the US Open.

Vijay and his son came to Asia from Encino, California where the family has settled down when the former tennis great married wife Shymala in 1983. Prakash, who learned most of the rudiments of the game from his dad, is joining the Southeast Asian legs of the ITF circuit to gain ITF points.

"Ranking in the junior tournaments is important if one is to turn pro," says Vijay, whose son has competed in Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Philippines and is scheduled to fly to Japan and later to Taipei to complete the Asian tour.

The past generations of tennis lovers will remember Vijay (which means Victor or Conqueror in English) as a member of the great ABCs (for Amritraj, Borg and Connors) of the early 70s. The three lived up to that image, making the biggest impact on the game in the late 70s and the whole of the 80s.

Vijay, who comes from a family of tennis players in Madras, India, was quarterfinalist in Wimbledon in 1973 and 1981 and the US Open in 1973 and 1974 and reached as high as No. 20 in the ATP rankings in 1980.

Although he did not win a Grandslam tournament like Bjorn Borg or Jimmy Connors, Amritraj was an endearing name to millions of fans because of his sportsmanlike attitude on court, where he applauded on his racket strings to acknowledge a great shot by an opponent. Some of the most elegant shotmaking in the game, which he still displays in exhibition matches and on the one-on-one training of his son, are all trademarks of Amritraj.

His popularity soared off the courts of Wimbledon, Roland Garros, Australia and the US in 1983 when he played a role as assistant of Agent 007 or better yet James Bond (played by Roger Moore) in the film Octopussy.

He received a tidy sum from that film at a time his tennis career was also at its peak and used it to build an Indian-inspired house in California.

There was a time when an elbow injury, known in tennis circles as Tennis Elbow, started to affect his game, and he was 36. He had it healed by a Filipino faith healer but two weeks later, the injury recurred.

Even during the years he had retired from competitive tennis (in early 90s), he was very much in the news.

He was twice president of the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) Tour. An art lover who took up stage acting in hopes of becoming a big star someday, Vijay set up his own TV production outfit "Amritraj Productions", which produces film features including animated shorts in a joint venture with Walt Disney.

He has two offices in Los Angeles and one each in Colombo and India.

An extrovert who is very comfortable with just any stranger, he had played tennis with former US President George Bush, whom he calls a long-time friend, and did the honor of carrying the Olympic flame into the Olympic stadium of Seoul in the 1988 Olympics.

He was the very first tennis player -- the very first athlete, for that matter -- and the first Asian to be accorded the honor to address the United Nations. On ESPN, he sits as tennis analyst during the games of the Grandslam tournaments and has been a guest in Good Morning, America.

He hobnobbed with such celebrities as Roger Moore and Linda Carter and entertained royalties the likes of Prince Charles and the late Lady Di, who were guests in the premier of Octopussy.

"These are some of the greatest, most memorable moments of my life," said Vijay.

Nowadays, he still plays senior exhibition matches in Europe, the US, Australia and Japan and travels to various parts of the world attending to his various business interests.

But he hasn't forgotten his Indian roots.

Once a month he goes to India to oversee the developments of junior tennis in Madras where he and his elder brother Anand, also a tennis pro (and like the Indian prodigy, also a good chess player), had set up the Britannia Amritraj Tennis Foundation, which trains promising junior tennis players into world caliber professionals under topnotch coaches.

One of the greatest products of the school was Leander Paes, currently the world's no. 1 doubles player. He and partner Makesh Bhupathi won the French and Wimbledon doubles and finished second in the US and Australian Open doubles, emerging as the top doubles pair in 1999.

"If you want to develop them into good tennis players, you must give them a good foundation," he said. In his autobiography, Vijay said the training of junior tennis players under world-caliber coach is the reason Indian players have made good marks in international competitions.

During the early years of his tennis career, Vijay etched his name in the hearts of Indian fans when he won the tournaments at Chichester, Bretton Woods and New Delhi in 1974 at the age of 19. He was a member of the Indian squad that advanced to the Davis Cup finals against South Africa in 1974 and against Sweden in 1987. His career Davis Cup score after 1987 was 45-28 (win-loss) with 27 wins in singles and 18 wins in doubles in 32 ties.

Those who think Vijay was cut out as an athlete from childhood are in for a surprise. He was so sickly during his childhood - because of a respiratory problem - his mother would attend classes for him, jot down the assignments and bring them home for Vijay to study. Everybody gave up on him except the father, the mother and Vijay.

Vijay was fortunate to have been trained by one of India's greatest coaches at the time, but it was the boy's positive attitude towards the game, his will at first to survive and later to win, his passion for the game and the full commitment of his parents that contributed to the making of India's greatest tennis player. Intense religiosity, as a devout Catholic, went into the molding of the character of the Indian gentleman known for his infectious smile on court and his refined manners off it.

"I'm happy the way I am now," Vijay says with a satisfied grin. "If I had to go through it (the course of my life) again, I won't change anything."

A fulfilled man, indeed.