The guest for the regular club
meeting on 30th September 2015 was tennis legend, Shri Mahesh
Bhupati. President Shirish Rege welcomed
him with a bouquet of flowers and after his opening remarks, Shri Bhupati
requested the panel of interviewers led by Past President Chandramohan Saigal
to shoot questions which he answered with flair and poise. The other
interviewers were Rahul Kejriwal (son of Past President Rtn.Krishna Kejriwal
and Rohan Samant (son of Rtn.Nilesh Samant).
The synopsis of the interactions with the interviewers as well as the
members of the club was as under:
Mahesh Bhupati lived his father’s
dream of becoming an ace tennis player…. Shri C.G.Krishna Bhupati’s tennis
career was cut-short due to an serious injury to his hand in an accident.
Coming from a humble middle class background, Mahesh started playing Tennis as
young as 3 yrs old. What Mahesh’s describes as a career forced upon him from a
very young age, he had to practice long hours and for quite some time they
lived in Muscat where Tennis has very little presence. He would spend hours
hitting against the wall. He was pulled out of his school, as the school did
not allow enough time for tennis practice. All holidays had to be in places where
there were tennis courts so he could continue with his practice.
His father took him to play in
the US when he was 11 yrs old and then to Wimbledon when he was 16, where he
saw Boris Becker play live. That was a big influence on him and how he would
see tennis in the years to come. Boris was his growing up years role model as
well. The constant practice and hard word coupled with his family backing got
him today to where he is.
52 Doubles Titles
Carrier Ranking = 1 (1999)
F (1999, 2009,
2011)
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W (1999, 2001)
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W (1999)
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W (2002)
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According to Mahesh, Roger Federer
is the best ever tennis player the sport has ever produced. He says that man is
a magician on the court. The things he can do with his racquet is stupendous.
When asked who is the best Serve and Volley player ever, He said that the
Records would indicate that Pete Sampras is the best, but he feels that Stefan
Edberg had the best talent in that style of game play. Unfortunately according
to Mahesh, that style of game is coming back very soon as technology with not
allow it. There is a 100% difference in the racquets between now and 10 years
back.
India does not have the coaches
for the children to make it big in tennis. We have the courts, but the rest of
the tutoring in terms of diet, proper technique and mental conditional is far
from desired. Mahesh said something very interesting that for mixed doubles he
has never practised with his partner before a tournament.
Grand Slam Mixed
Doubles results
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W (2006, 2009)
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W (1997, 2012)
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W (2002, 2005)
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W (1999, 2005)
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Finally he mentioned that it’s
going to be a long time before India produced its first ever Major Slam Winner.
He is almost retired and now runs his academy and has started the ITPL, which
he thinks has great potential going forward. He said after Cricket, tennis is
the most popular sport in India but still very short on funding. All players
have to fund themselves and he is endorsing some very good players and helping
them gather funding including sending them for training to the US, to fulfil
their and India’s Tennis dream.
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