Balachandran Manikkath, affectionately known as “Balu Sir,” is a highly respected Indian tennis coach with over three decades of experience. A former national doubles champion and mechanical engineer, he has a deep understanding of both the technical and strategic aspects of the game. Manikkath is particularly known for his expertise in developing young talent, having mentored players like Prajnesh Gunneswaran, Sriram Balaji, Jeevan Nedunchezhian, and Vishnu Vardhan.

He is renowned for his analytical approach to coaching and his ability to adapt strategies for different playing surfaces. Manikkath is an active contributor to the tennis community, sharing his insights through articles, presentations, and online chats. He is currently a consultant coach at the Rohan Bopanna Tennis Academy and plays a significant role in India’s “Doubles Dream” project, focused on propelling Indian doubles players to the ATP Tour.

Coach Balu Sir has been traveling with Yuki Bhambri for the past month and caught up with Indian Tennis Daily post the semis win in Munich.

Interviewer: Congratulations on today’s win! It’s actually the third time that Yuki is playing against this same pair. They lost last year in the semi-finals and at the Marrakesh semi-final as well. So, what are your thoughts on the match?

Coach Balachandran: Yuki has beaten them last year at Mallorca. And then, yes, last couple of times he has lost to them. The Marrakesh was not a great tie-break. So, Yuki knew that if he plays his standard level of tennis, he can beat them. Because he has played them enough number of times to know what they do. So, today he was better prepared in terms of the conditions of playing on clay and having played them recently in Marrakesh with Albano. So, all that contributed today.

So, both of them as a team were better prepared and put up a really good show. Maybe one game in the second set could have been better. But overall, great performance from them and played solid in Super 10.

Interviewer: Yuki and Albano defeated the Monte Carlo Masters champions in R1! What was the game plan coming in?

Coach Balachandran: With the technology available, we get a good idea of what the players like, what they do in present situation. And I had taken some notes from Rohan as well. So, we had an idea of what Gille and Vliegan do. So, we came into the match well prepared. And the reason they won is because Albano and Yuki actually played a really high quality match.

I mean, they didn’t start well because the conditions again were cold and they didn’t have a good service game. But after that, they played solid. They won on their merit. One error from them but they took the tiebreak on their own terms.

Interviewer: You’ve been traveling with Yuki for nearly a year now. What do you see? What is the potential of Yuki in doubles?

Coach Balachandran: Yuki was a top 100 player. He was world number one junior. So, there’s no doubt about his abilities as a tennis player. But again, coming from singles to doubles, doubles has got its own technicalities and specialties. Yuki, again, being a very good tennis player and a smart tennis player, is beginning to get into more of doubles skills and kind of polish it.

This year he has been consistent. He’s not had a breakthrough run so hopefully this tournament will be the start of the breakthrough to get him into the 30s which will help him play masters and all the big events on a regular basis.

Interviewer: Is there any specific area that you are working with Yuki right now?

Coach Balachandran: At the moment, it’s more about how to adapt to clay because certain requirements for clay which is different from hard and he has been playing a lot on. So, from Marrakesh, we’ve been working more towards what is ideal for clay and few things are going well and few aspects will take time because that’s not very natural for Yuki having come from singles. But then he’s doing it well. Matches are getting better, he’s getting solid, he’s hardly missing from the back. Work put in, it’s showing results so that’s how our credit goes to Yuki, no doubt.

Interviewer: So these days like in the ATP double circuit, the partners are always changing. How difficult is it from a coach’s perspective?

Coach Balachandran: More than the coaches perspective, it’s actually challenging for the players because they don’t have a regular partner. They need to identify the partner they want to play with. They need to get a partner who will help them play the tournaments they need because obviously everybody wants to play the tour and tournaments but if they don’t have a ranking and partner doesn’t have a high ranking, they don’t get in.

So it’s challenging for the player to begin with and yeah as a coach if you’re working with the player and then you see what best can be done with the partner and it’s only one week, it’s not much you can do because they themselves haven’t known each other. If it’s few weeks in a row it helps because the partner for example now Albano after having spend a week in Marrakesh and now here it becomes easier because Albano also knows me well so we can have a chat. It’s a team effort from the coaches and the players.

Interviewer: What makes Albano and Yuki tick?

Coach Balachandran: Albano has a big serve. I mean he was a bit struggling in Marrakesh but here he’s doing a lot better and with his coach around he’s a lot more confident and Yuki we know returns really well and Yuki has started serving smart on clay so that helps him hold serve. Albano’s serve is a given and when you make few returns and Albano makes few returns in a game the break is coming so there’s always pressure on the opponent.

Interviewer: Okay so you’ve got like one day rest before the finals on Sunday. Any thoughts on the final?

Coach Balachandran: Let’s see who gets to the finals. We’re already there so we can sit back and see who gets in. Tomorrow is the practice day. We’ve been playing three days in a row. Conditions are not easy so hopefully tomorrow we’ll see some sun and we’ll practice.

Interviewer: Okay so I have just one last question. How do you review the double dream project of India? We have also had like Raven Klassen who joined recently.

Coach: Since the program started we have had a lot of success and the success still continues and Raven has come in recently so he’s going to be a great addition to the team because for the players multiple coaches or two coaches at the moment Raven and myself so it helps players because we can ensure that they have support most of the weeks because one coach alone can’t do multiple weeks and they’re playing different tournaments like right now he is in Mexico, he did US and Mexico.

I’m doing Europe so it definitely helps the players. The program has been a success so far and as we speak Nikki and Rithvik are at career best, they’re close to 120s now and we already had last year quite a few of them moving into the hundreds as well so overall it’s good and hopefully more players come into this bracket and existing players move towards the tour level.