Malaysian Wong Peng Soon — the first Asian to win the All-England in 1950, his first of four, had arrived at Bombay’s CCI courts and left more than a hint of his personal charm on India’s nascent shuttle-scene. Nandu Natekar, the first Indian to win a title abroad, had come up against the then world no 1 at an invitational in 1951, and come away mesmerised. “His back-hand was so impressive, I consciously tried to emulate it, practicing the swing for countless hours,” Natekar recalls.

Two decades later in 1970 — and exactly ten years before he won the All-England, Prakash Padukone, playing as a 15-year-old, had lost 15-3, 15-5 to Rudy Hartono Kurniawan, the Indonesian stopping to play in India after picking his maiden world championship crown. “Just watching him play had a great impact — that’s when we realised how much we had to work harder, how to work on fitness, and just what it takes to play at that level,” Padukone remembers. Padukone’s style a year later in 1971 was markedly more aggressive, his national junior title in the subsequent year proving to be the impetus he needed to take off to bigger battles.

Erland Kops — the first Westerner to win a major singles titles in the Far East, had often played in India during Natekar’s time. The then world no 1 Dane’s mercurial presence on court made him quite a popular man in the late 50s. CCI and Bombay Gymkhana courts, with their small capacities, would fill to the brim, as even the nationals invited foreign names — players from Pakistan, America, Denmark and Thailand.

... contd.