An Indian Grand Slam champion by 2018
There is fantastic news for all the aspiring tennis players and tennis fans of this country. In what ranks as one of the biggest sports projects undertaken by an Indian corporate house, the Apollo Group has set the ‘tyre’ rolling to create India’s first grand slam champion by 2018. The plan is two fold ; one, popularizing the sport to attract youngsters to the game, and two, identifying young talent nationally and sponsoring their training, skill development and global exposure. The Group has committed an amount of 100 crores, to be spent over the next 10 years, towards this project. Hats off to them for their initiative, and more so for daring to think beyond cricket. (Read more about the announcement).
As part of their plan, they have decided to tie-up with India’s leading tennis player, Mahesh Bhupathi, who also runs the Mahesh Bhupathi Tennis Academy (MBTA). Now this is where my hopes for this project start to slump.
I have checked out the internet and the MBTA website to see what they have been up to. There isn’t a single half –decent player to come out of this academy. The coaches include Mahesh’s father whose single claim to coaching fame is tutoring his son, and Gaurav Natekar – who at junior level was as good as Leander but failed to make the grade as a senior. The website has few details of their programs and fee structure. I even wrote them an e-mail asking for details but they are yet to get back. In a nut shell, I don’t think Mahesh Bhupathi and co have the know how to produce a grand slam champion, and quite frankly the 100 crores is going down the drain. Even Mahesh’s development as a doubles champion had a lot to do with his NCAA stint at Stanford University.
Is that the end of the project, or is there a way to do it differently to achieve the desired goal? Yes there is. Think Nick Bollettieri – the greatest tennis coach to walk this planet. He has produced from scratch, the greatest collection of tennis champions in the world. The likes of Agassi, Sampras, Courier, Seles and Mary Pierce took their first baby steps towards tennis stardom under his tutelage. And the best part is that Nick sees great potential in India and is more than interested in starting an academy in India, as he claimed in an interview way back in 2004.
Few people know that, in 2004 the Indian subsidiary of the IMG, which owns the Bollettieri academy in Florida, had announced a plan to set a world class tennis academy in India with an initial investment of 120 million dollars. Nick was to play a leading role in the academy modeled on the one, he runs back home. Sadly the land allotted for the project by the Chandra Babu govt was then taken away by the pro-farmer regime of Raj Shekhar Reddy leaving the project in limbo. The govt claimed that the Indian subsidiary called IMG Bharata was not associated with IMG, a point clearly invalidated on the IMG website.
So the way forward for the Apollo people is to revive the project and give the job to the experts. Nick Bollettieri has already proved that he can work wonders with people from different parts of the world; just check out the alumni list on his website, and with him in charge of the ‘Indian Grand Slam Champion 2018’ project, tennis fans can start making travel plans for Wimbledon 2018.
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As part of their plan, they have decided to tie-up with India’s leading tennis player, Mahesh Bhupathi, who also runs the Mahesh Bhupathi Tennis Academy (MBTA). Now this is where my hopes for this project start to slump.
I have checked out the internet and the MBTA website to see what they have been up to. There isn’t a single half –decent player to come out of this academy. The coaches include Mahesh’s father whose single claim to coaching fame is tutoring his son, and Gaurav Natekar – who at junior level was as good as Leander but failed to make the grade as a senior. The website has few details of their programs and fee structure. I even wrote them an e-mail asking for details but they are yet to get back. In a nut shell, I don’t think Mahesh Bhupathi and co have the know how to produce a grand slam champion, and quite frankly the 100 crores is going down the drain. Even Mahesh’s development as a doubles champion had a lot to do with his NCAA stint at Stanford University.
Is that the end of the project, or is there a way to do it differently to achieve the desired goal? Yes there is. Think Nick Bollettieri – the greatest tennis coach to walk this planet. He has produced from scratch, the greatest collection of tennis champions in the world. The likes of Agassi, Sampras, Courier, Seles and Mary Pierce took their first baby steps towards tennis stardom under his tutelage. And the best part is that Nick sees great potential in India and is more than interested in starting an academy in India, as he claimed in an interview way back in 2004.
Few people know that, in 2004 the Indian subsidiary of the IMG, which owns the Bollettieri academy in Florida, had announced a plan to set a world class tennis academy in India with an initial investment of 120 million dollars. Nick was to play a leading role in the academy modeled on the one, he runs back home. Sadly the land allotted for the project by the Chandra Babu govt was then taken away by the pro-farmer regime of Raj Shekhar Reddy leaving the project in limbo. The govt claimed that the Indian subsidiary called IMG Bharata was not associated with IMG, a point clearly invalidated on the IMG website.
So the way forward for the Apollo people is to revive the project and give the job to the experts. Nick Bollettieri has already proved that he can work wonders with people from different parts of the world; just check out the alumni list on his website, and with him in charge of the ‘Indian Grand Slam Champion 2018’ project, tennis fans can start making travel plans for Wimbledon 2018.
4 comments:
Insightful. The media at times does not wish to dig into the details and attempt a post mortem or a simple analysis of the press release. Blogs like this one keep the common fan more informed.
Great article & great advice, but I still see hope... If the Rs.100 crs is spent building grass roots infrastructure, building courts, developing coaches, building health & fitness facilities, giving schools free access to the facilities, organizing 100s of nationwide school level competitions…it will be money well spent. I do not think we necessarily need a superstar coach such as Nick. Nick delivers the champions, but the basic infrastructure, provides opportunities & helps Nick discover right talent to groom. I also think, aiming for 2018 stinks of lethargy...I hope someone beats them to it.
Your point is well taken. But what is the objective here? To deliver a grand slam champion or create a system which delivers a stream of decent players. We need our players to take the next step to become the best. Also its easier for a corporate to focus on a single project, rather than get involved in multiple large-scale country wide projects. And that necessitates the involvement of the AITA as well.
Even if the objective is to deliver Grand Slam Champs, I doubt if that will be sustainable without strong infrastructure to consistently deliver a large talent pool. And sadly if AITA were to ever do anything, they would have...
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