Vijay Amritraj was awarded the Padma Bhushan award by President Draupadi Murmu on Tuesday. | Photo Credit: Special arrangement

Former Indian tennis player and administrator Vijay Amritraj was awarded the Padma Bhushan award by President Draupadi Murmu at the Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi on June 23.

Amritraj was one of India’s greatest tennis players, achieving a career-high ATP singles ranking of World No. 18 in 1980. A three-time National Singles Champion, he represented India with distinction over two decades and led the nation to the Davis Cup Finals in 1974 and 1987, and was selected as an Olympic torchbearer for the 1980 Olympics in Seoul.

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He has also had a storied career as an administrator, initiating the Britannia Amritraj Tennis (BAT) programme, which nurtured talents like Leander Paes and Somdev Devvarman. He served as President of the ATP Council, and is currently the President of the Tamil Nadu Tennis Association.

Under his stewardship, TNTA successfully brought the WTA 250 Chennai Open, India’s highest-ranked international women’s tennis event, back to the city and launched The Next Level, a high-performance player development programme aimed at identifying and nurturing India’s most promising young talent.

Published on Jun 23, 2026