• In terms of performance, I think, no Indian has really matched you in tennis. You played the full professional circuit against the best, and you beat everyone: Lendl, McEnroe, Connors.

Well, I always say it’s longevity. I played in the era of Laver and Rosewall, Smith and Ashe, and Connors, Borg and McEnroe — Becker and Edberg were coming along. So I was able to play against all generations of players.

I played at a wonderful time in the sport and I was very fortunate to have played as long as I did against the best of each generation.

• You also played tennis then on their terms — serve and volley, not the usual Indian touch tennis.

I think it’s also to do with the fact that I was bigger than average as far as height is concerned. I’m about 6ft 4”, so it helped me with a good serve, it helped me with playing the net a bit more, playing more attacking tennis. I think in those days, the continental grip was a big thing; it was important to be able to play an all-round game. Skill was very much of a thing in play as opposed to the pace and power today.

• And of course you had your famous luck with the net cords that defeated many opponents.

(Laughs) Indian luck. I always think it comes from being an Indian.

• There was a time — unfortunately we could not watch you on television in those days — when the whole country was obsessed with your overhead smash, or with your problems with your overhead smash.

I missed one, but it was the most famous one.

• That’s the regret. You could have gone on to win Wimbledon.

Yes, I’d like to think so, and a lot of people are nice enough to believe so as well. Even in this day, 32 years after that 1973 match against Jan Kodes, people still remember and say:‘ Oh, you destroyed my week by missing that smash.’ But, yeah, I mean, 19 years old at the time ... things went a little off perhaps at that point. I guess I could have won it, though.

• I remember reading all the experts in The Indian Express then, and in The Times of India and The Hindustan Times, saying: ‘If only he could jump while smashing.’

But the strange thing is, that was one of my good shots. The smash was one of my good shots and I always felt that I could never miss it. It was a one in a hundred chance then, and it happened to come at the wrong moment.

• The other thing that became a national obsession at the time was your alleged lack of killer instinct. Everybody said: ‘Vijay beats everybody, but somehow he’s just too nice a guy on court.’

(Laughs) I don’t know whether to take that as a compliment or as a deficiency. But at the end of the day, you don’t win as much if you don’t have it in you. Borg did it one way and Connors did it one way; Federer does it one way, McEnroe did it a different way. So I think it’s kind of hard to pinpoint and say: well, he didn’t have the killer instinct. I think I’ve won quite a bit and I was very proud of my wins.

• But you didn’t glare at your opponent, you didn’t bare your teeth. I remember the famous one with McEnroe — I think he irritated you a bit.

Yeah, he constantly irritated most players.

• Even you?

But you’re able to overcome it with your own temperament. I think a lot of it comes from being Indian.

• You remember that one point when you lost it — you either spoke to the umpire in exasperation or to the crowd and said: ‘How do I handle this guy?’

I think the important thing in dealing with a player with temperament, and especially someone like McEnroe, is to be able to use it to your advantage. We did it to a great extent in the Davis Cup, when we played them once in the US. But, overall, I was fortunate to beat them a few times.

It came from the fact that I had a decent temperament, and that temperament came from being Indian. I think that that cultural background, that bringing-up, makes a lot of difference to your temperament.

• Some of your successors are different — Leander, for example.

Well, yes and no. Each individual is different. My son is going to be different from me, so is Leander. Each person has his own individuality. That doesn’t make it right or wrong; it just makes it different.

I think each person has to do what’s right for him or her — I mean, how do you perform? Sania Mirza performing is to do what she does to the best of her ability. What do you need to do to perform at the best of your ability? Within the rules of the game, you’ve got to do what’s right for yourself.

• So you don’t particularly regret having been a nice guy? Because you’ve benefited from it too — you became this great ambassador for tennis, and more.

(Laughs) I don’t look at it that way at all. I just hope I represented my country in the proper manner.

• When you talk about using McEnroe’s temperament to your advantage, I remember he once almost threw away his racket and said: ‘How can I play Ramesh Krishnan? This guy serves at five miles per hour.’ Were you behind this?

I was right there when it happened — it was during the Davis Cup in La Costa in southern California.

• And he’s never forgiven you for it?

No, no ... it’s great actually. His father got hold of me a week later and said: ‘How did you do that to my son?’

• But tell us, what did you do?

Nothing much except that we got into his head — it’s not difficult to get into McEnroe’s head. It’s easy, it’s just waiting to be exploited.

• Was it pre-planned? Was it a strategy?

No. To a great extent, that’s the way Ramesh plays, you know. He’s a very surgical player, we used to call him ‘The Surgeon’. Overall, I think he put McEnroe off completely by the style of his performance. At the end of the day, McEnroe’s such a genius on the court — but the interesting thing is his temperament affected him a lot.

• And that was the strategy — you couldn’t beat McEnroe stroke for stroke, but you could beat him in the mind?

Yes, you had to work with something else. And to a great extent we were able to do it. The late Arthur Ashe, who was captain of the Davis Cup team in the US at the time — I was actually able to tell him at the captains’ meeting that we’re going to have to get into McEnroe’s head and we will.

And he said: ‘Listen, you can’t do that.’ And we said: ‘Yes, we can. It’s the Davis Cup, we can do anything.’

• Let me ask you a question that I’ve wanted to ask you for a very long time. You’ve talked about the 1973 Wimbledon, which you could have gone on to win but for that one overhead smash. The second was the Davis Cup final in 1987. If God gave you the choice of winning one of the two, which would you rather have won?

Well, for me Wimbledon and the Davis Cup were about your country. I just happened to be the one representing the country. To me, they weren’t individual events; to me, Wimbledon was a country’s event. I was an Indian playing, I just happened to be Vijay. It could have been someone else — but you were Indian.

All other tournaments, it was a profession. But Wimbledon and the Davis up were to me, the be all and end all of tennis. And why we played the game. So there’d be no choice between the two. When you’re winning Wimbledon or the Davis Cup, you’re winning for your country at the same time.

But the Davis Cup would mean just that little bit more simply because we don’t mention the name of the person. We mention the name of the country.

• This is the interesting thing. So many Indian tennis players — you in particular, but also Ramesh, Ramanathan Krishnan, Leander — all of you have done so much better, you bring out something extra when you play Davis Cup. What is this thing about playing for the logo or playing for the flag?

It is a question that fascinates me. I asked Rahul Dravid — when he got his first hundred, he took off his helmet and kissed the Indian crest. What is it about playing for the flag?

I think you feel a lot more special. Over the years, considering the volume of people that we have in this country, we really haven’t had that many fine athletes who’ve played international sport at the highest level. I think that has a role to play in the way we feel. In my time, it was only perhaps Gavaskar and myself ...

• ... Who also, just like you, has reinvented himself and is now as much of an icon, if not a bigger one, as when he was playing.

Sunil at the time always hoped that I would do well in tennis and I would always hope that they would do well in cricket because it took the pressure off you. Today, fortunately, we have so many more great athletes — Karthikeyan in F-1, we have Sania playing tremendous tennis, we have Vishy Anand who’s a world champion in chess, we’ve always had a tremendous cricket team. We have a whole bunch of guys who’ve done well in sport, so, to some extent, the pressure has eased off.

But the pride of being Indian, the pride of being who you are, it made you feel special. It always does. To this day, I get goose bumps when I see the flag flying and hear the anthem being played. The great pride I have in Prakash, my son, is that, more than anything else, he developed his own passion and his own pride in being Indian without ever learning it from me.

• And you didn’t wean him away from wanting to be an actor? He chose tennis over acting, is it?

(Laughs) He probably still wants to be an actor. But, at the end of the day, there’s only that long you can be in sport.

• He should learn from the father and the uncle, I think. Acting he can do after his playing years.

If that’s what he wants to do, that’s what he should do. You should go with your passion.

• Tell me your favourite on-court moments.

My favourite on-court moments ... obviously, for me, they were numerous. But in my early years, when I was a schoolboy, I won a college tournament, the biggest college tournament in India at the time. I was 13 and a half. My first national championship victory, beating Ramanathan Krishnan in the final — it was a very, very special moment for me and for my family.

There were a lot of memorable moments, but the one that really stands out is [reaching] the Davis Cup final in 1974, having beaten the Soviet Union. And of course in 1987, coming from behind, through all our matches, and getting to the final against Sweden.

So those were two very special years in the Davis Cup, but they were actually 13 years apart.

• Tell me something about your great match against Connors.

Well, that was Connors in 1981 ... [also] Roscoe Tanner, five sets at Wimbledon. I beat Noah there one year in four sets, beat Borg at the US Open, which was a very special moment. But I think the big moments are when you’re younger.

At 19, I beat Laver at the US Open. He was seeded number two and I beat him in the third round in five sets. It was voted the best match of the decade on CBS at the time.

• But is there a moment you especially cherish, an exchange with somebody? Did Connors say something to you in that match?

Oh, Connors said a lot to me during the course of matches, not all of it can be repeated. I can’t do that, you’ve got to keep it clean (laughs). But it’s the same with McEnroe; there’s a lot of verbal communication from these guys when they play against you.

At Wimbledon this year, I had Connors in our studio. We had a long chat live, and we went back and we talked about these various things, It was very interesting to listen to what he had to say about the matches we had together. He was very brash on court, and then when he did this interview with me, he kind of reminisced about it, and said: ‘You handled yourself so incredibly well at a time when things were so win-win-win for all of us ...’ It was nice to listen to him.

• Indian sport has changed since your time. It has shed some of the nice people or happy losers image.

(Laughs) Happy losers? I’ve never heard that expression before. You’re not supposed to be happy when you lose. I think you have to take defeat in the right way, hope it makes you work harder, try harder, strive for greater heights and get better at what you’re doing. That’s the goal of learning from defeat.

• Not to feel bitter or brood over it?

Absolutely not. There will be disappointment — there is no question of that. If you don’t feel disappointed when you lose, you shouldn’t be competing.

• Did you think about the 1973 quarter-final a great deal? Do you still think about it or have you put it behind you?

When you are 19, you know, you think you can do no wrong. That year, at the US Open, of course, I had a very good run. I beat Laver went on to be in the world top 10. So it was a very special year for me.

• There was that whole ‘ABC’ of world tennis at that time — Amritraj, Borg, Connors.

But then Borg and Connors went on to win so many Wimbledons and so many US Opens, and became such great champions; and I remained a good player.

• You know my favourite of all your great matches? Unfortunately, it was one you lost. I was at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, you were playing Henri Leconte. If you talk about longevity, you were really at an age when most tennis players give up. And you gave him such a tough time, you almost won.

I remember you came and told us after the match: ‘If only this wasn’t on centre court,

I would have beaten him.’

Well, I’m not quite sure about that. He was younger, he was stronger, he was better.

• In 1988, he was at his peak. Nobody expected anyone to give him trouble, but you almost beat him. It seemed to all of us you were only able to do it because it was the same flag issue.

No question. There’s absolutely no question. It carried on for such a long time. Even in 1987, when I would have been 32 or 33, to be able to help India get to the final of the Davis Cup was a miracle — what I call a miracle on grass. You know, the Americans call their big victory in ice hockey against the Soviets a ‘miracle on ice’; I call that a ‘miracle on grass’.

• Do me a ranking — Borg, McEnroe, Connors, Federer, Sampras, Agassi.

(Smiles) That’s a question we should talk about in a bar. I don’t like comparisons of yesteryears’ world champions and today’s, simply because greatness always shows up in any generation. You are great given your ability and the equipment you have at that time. Borg was great in his time, Sampras was great in his time, Federer is great in his time. Any one of them, in any generation, would have been the best.

• So, who’s the best today?

Oh Federer, without any doubt.

• How does the Indian tennis scene look? I know you’re asked about Sania Mirza all the time. But what does the scene look like generally?

I think Indian tennis is very promising. The growth in Indian sport as a whole has been remarkable, tennis in particular. There’re a lot more kids playing the game, there’s a lot more interest, a lot more sponsorship, a lot more television.

• You’re happy with the way your sons are coming along?

Absolutely. Prakash is doing well, Harsh [Mankad] is doing well, Rohan [Bopanna] is doing well. I’m delighted not just at Prakash’s improvement but that he has a great passion for the game. He’s got a great work ethic which I think will get him very far, not just in tennis, but in life. But on a general basis for Indian sport, I think the tide has turned and we’re on our way up.

• And how do you see Sania’s progress? Has she surprised you or did you anticipate this when you first saw her?

She always had the talent, there’s no question. I think a lot of Indian kids have shown that talent. But the work has got to go along with the talent. Nothing can be done without the work and the commitment that goes into it. And, of course, you need the breaks.

But over the last 18 months she’s made a remarkable improvement from the ranking she was at to where she is today. I think that the expectation levels are what we need to be concerned about — whether we put too much on her. I think the only people who can mess up her progress are you and me. Otherwise, leave her alone and she’ll be fine.

• Do you see her breaking into the top 20 and staying there?

I think she can make the top 10. I’ve always paid very little attention to ranking. To me, the more important thing was winning — winning a Grand Slam or winning Wimbledon, Davis Cup, Federation Cup.

• And you see her having the basic ability to win one of these?

Yes. It’s very clear that off the back court, she is superb. There are improvements she needs to make on three or four elements in her game ... but she’s working on them.

• Beginning with her service?

The serve, the volley, the movement and so on. But she’s working very hard on all of that at this point, so the improvement is going to come. Yes, there are going to be some downfalls along the way. But in the final analysis, people don’t remember losses, they remember victories. Unless, of course, you’re talking about me. Then they remember the losses (laughs).

• Has Sania been speaking to you?

We’ve had some nice conversations, especially during Wimbledon, and even during the US Open. I think she has a delightful personality, which is great for our sport. It’s great for women’s tennis.

• Is there anything about her which worries you? Her injuries, her fitness?

Well, for any athlete the biggest worry is injury. You don’t know whether you’re overdoing it or underplaying it. Even with Prakash, for example. The most difficult thing is that kids don’t understand that 50 per cent is hard work, but the other 50 per cent is the ability to relax and take care of yourself. That’s the hardest part. You also need to protect your body. Not: ‘Oh, I haven’t played enough, I haven’t worked enough today, I need to go to the gym more.’

• We saw that happen with another very talented player like Irfan Pathan in cricket. A lot of people think he just overdid his physical conditioning and picked up his injuries there. He’s also young, the same age.

Even in F-1 — with Kartikeyan, you know — those guys lose two or three kilos just sitting in that car, and their neck muscles are in real trouble when they drive those things. How do you protect it? How do you look after it?

• The stress levels are much higher.

And that’s why you need your mental skills.

• I remember one thing Sania said on this show. I asked what drives you: is it money, is it fame, what is it? She said: ‘What drives me is the idea of hitting the other woman as hard as possible with the ball in her belly.’ And I said: ‘This is a far cry from what we’ve seen from an Indian sportsperson.’

It’s great. I think the athlete drives himself to get better because of an overwhelming desire to win. That’s the key and that’s what comes from the mind. It’s that mental toughness which gives you overwhelming desire.

• Vijay, tell me about how you reinvented yourself. Cinema, your entertainment business and now you’re a UN ambassador for peace: you’re a master at multitasking, isn’t it?

I certainly enjoy different things. I enjoy the world of media, I enjoy the world of film, the world of music, the world of television. I try to work my business in that area, in media, and I’ve been fortunate with it.

I’ve enjoyed having my knowledge of tennis exploited on television as commentator. I enjoy covering the major Grand Slam events. Again, it gives me a different view point of the match. I’m also able to share it with the viewer, which is the most important thing.

• And how do you see your role as UN Ambassador for Peace? You’re perhaps the only Indian sportsperson who is an international icon, not just an Indian one.