Amritraj, Vijay

Vijay Amritraj was born at the end of 1953 in Madras to the family of Robert Amritraj and Maggie Dhayriam. Vijay and his brothers studied at Don Bosco’s Tamil school in Madras, and then at Loyola’s Jesuit College , also in Madras. Subsequently, both Vijay and his two brothers were engaged in professional tennis.

In 1974, Vijay became the winner of the Indian Arjun Award , awarded for sporting achievements ^[2] , in 1983 he won the Padma Sri Award, one of the country's most prestigious sports awards, and in 1988 he was honored to take part in the Olympic Relay fire ^[3] . In 2001, he was appointed Peace Envoy to the United Nations , devoting several years to the fight against drugs and AIDS in the world ^[4] . In 2006, he founded the Vijay Amritraj Foundation, a humanitarian organization dedicated to helping "victims of disease, tragedy and circumstances" in India ^[5] .

After the end of his sports career, Vijay leads sports broadcasts from the biggest tennis competitions for ESPN Stars and Fox Sports channels . He founded the first tennis academy in India in his native Madras (now Chennai). Graduates of the Britain-Amritraj Academy in particular are such tennis players as Leander Paez and Rohit Rajpal ^[6] . Since 1989, he has been elected Chairman of the Council of Players of the Professional Tennis Players Association (APR) five times ^[3] .

Vijay's wife, Syamala, is a tamilka from Ceylon . They have two sons. One of the sons of Vijay, Prakash Amritraj , like his nephew, the son of Anand Amritraj Stephen , performs in professional tennis tournaments.

The first years of Vijay Amritraj’s tennis career came at the beginning of the Open Era , which enabled him from the very beginning, in 1970, to participate in professional tennis tournaments. In the same year, he began playing for the Indian team in the Davis Cup , taking part in victories over the teams of Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

In 1973, Amritraj won his first Grand Prix tournaments (including taking Bretton Woods over Jimmy Connors , already one of the leaders of world tennis at that time) and reached the quarter-finals at the Wimbledon US Open Championship in the singles (at Wimbledon, he beat Owen Davidson and lost to future champion Ian Kodesh , and in New York defeated Rod Laver before losing to Ken Roswall ). At the end of the season, he became the first tennis player in the world to receive the ATP award in the nomination "Progress of the Year" ^[7] .

The next year, Vijay and his brother Anand won their first doubles tournament, and at the US Open reiterated their last year’s success, defeating Bjorn Borg in the quarterfinals and losing to Roswald, the future finalist. He also played a central role in the success of the national team of India, reaching with it the finals of the World group of the Davis Cup. On the way, he won his matches twice with the teams of Japan, Australia (bringing the decisive point to the Indians in a fight with Bob Giltinan ) and the USSR (including defeating Alexander Metreveli and Teimuraz Kakulia with his brother in a doubles match). However, the situation was such that the South African team was to compete with the Indians in the finals, where the apartheid regime was operating at that time, and the Indian Tennis Federation decided to boycott the match, so that South Africans became champions without a game.

Another significant success Vijay and Anand reached in 1976 , when they reached the semifinals at Wimbledon in doubles. To do this, they in the first round had to beat one of the best pairs in the world - the former first racket in doubles Bob Hewitt and the future first racket Fry Macmillan . In the semifinals, they lost the first racket of the world to Raoul Ramirez and Brian Gottfried . The next year, for the first time, Vijay won the doubles title without a brother, winning the WCT doubles title with Dick Stockton .

Until the early 1980s, Vijay Amritraj regularly qualified for the finals of professional tournaments, winning a total of 14 tournaments in singles and 10 in pairs by the end of 1980 , as well as losing 18 finals (7 in singles and 11 in doubles). At that time, as later in the first half of the next decade, he remained the undisputed leader of the Indian national team and the best tennis player in Asia, reaching in 1980 the 16th place in the world rankings in singles and 23rd in doubles. At the beginning and end of 1980, he twice reached the finals of the most prestigious tournaments of the World Championship Tennis tour, losing first to Borg, and then to John Macinroy . In 1981, he last reached the quarterfinals of the Grand Slam , defeating his long-time offender Codesh in the first round of Wimbledon and losing to Connors.

In the 1980s, Vijay’s success became more rare, but he continued to perform until 1990 , having won two titles in singles and three in doubles over the decade. Among the successes of this decade, we can also note the victory won over John McInroy - the first racket of the world at that time - in the first round of the tournament in Cincinnati in 1984 . With the national team, for which he spent a total of 73 games, having won 45 of them, Vijay Amritraj reached the Davis Cup final in 1987 for the second time in his career, winning five meetings out of seven against Argentina , Israel and Australia, but in the finals, the Indians could not resist the Swedes , for whom in those days Mats Wilander , Stefan Edberg and Anders Jarried played, and lost dry. In 1988, the 34-year-old Vijay took part in the tennis tournament at the Olympic Games , the first after a 50-year hiatus, losing in the first round of the single-player tournament to Henri Leconte , and paired up with his brother in the second round to future bronze medalists, Mechirge and Schreiber .

In recent years, Amritraj participates in veteran tournaments. So, since 2008, he regularly plays in the doubles tournament of veterans at Wimbledon - first with Gene Mayer , and later with John Fitzgerald .

Titles in professional career tournaments (29)

Singles (16)

Doubles (13)

Participation in the Davis Cup Finals (2)

Defeats (2)

Unlike his brother Ashok , after a nine-year tennis career became a successful film producer ^[8] , Vijay Amritraj, although he was in a movie, did not make it his second specialty. His film debut in 1983 became a small role in Octopussy , one of the episodes of Bond . In 1986, he became one of the main actors in the TV series Last Plot ( eng. The Last Precinct ) and a regular participant in Jacob Smirnoff 's show “What a Country!” ( Eng What What Country! ), And also appeared in the fourth full-length the film from the Star Trek series as a star captain. In 2001, he starred in a small role in one of the episodes of the action movie “ Steep Walker: Texas Justice ”.

In addition to these roles, Vijay Amritraj was shot in a number of documentary and popular science films, usually in the role of himself, and produced three films, including one, the Bollywood musical “ I love you, Hamesh ,” as the main producer. Another appearance on the screen took place in the Family Feud program (licensed as “ One Hundred to One ” in Russia), where he performed with his family ^[9] .

Amritraj owns California-based First Serve Entertainment, a company specializing in multimedia programs for Asian-American consumers. His company participated in the development of the Indian market Walt Disney Company , ESPN and TNT ^[9] .

Filmography

• Profile on ATP website (eng.)

• Profile on the ITF website
• Profile on the Davis Cup website (eng.)

• Vijay Amritraj Foundation (Eng.)