We strive to offer the ultimate tennis experience to young athletes at every level, to discover and to nurture India’s talent by setting the highest standards at the academies.
Bhupathi Academy centre at Hyderabad HYDERABAD: The Hyderabad Cricket Association is looking beyond cricket to transform the Rajiv Gandhi Stadium (Uppal) into a full-fledged sports complex. Dr. M.V. Sridhar, HCA secretary, held a final round of talks with former Davis Cupper Guarav Natekar representing Mahesh Bhupathi’s Academy, and informed The Hindu that HCA has reached a pact whereby the Bhupathi Academy would have its centre at the RG stadium in Uppal. Presently activities will be conducted on the two existing tennis courts which may be floodlit in future, depending on the response from the tennis lovers. “The Bhupathi Academy will bear the complete operational costs including coaching and buying of equipment. And the revenue will be shared with 80 per cent going to them and 20 per cent to HCA,” Sridhar said. “This agreement will be initially for five years and the possibility of extending it depends on how well the whole concept thrives,” he said. News source: The Hindu | read full story || Newspaper clipping: Mid-Day ..................................................................................................................................................................... Asian Under 14 KUCHING 12th - 16th AUGUST
..................................................................................................................................................................... Independence Day Tennis Carnival by Birla Sun Life Insurance held on 13th to 16th August. Click here to view images. ..................................................................................................................................................................... Bhupathi serves another ace for juniors NEW DELHI: In a landmark deal that augurs well for the development of grassroots tennis in India, Mahesh Bhupathi has tied up with the promoters of Team Tennis to run 45 tennis academies spread across the country. Team Tennis has already made a name for itself as being a serious programme what with Aditya Sachdeva emerging as one of the more conscientious junior coaches of recent times. Sachdeva has been pivotal in the success of India’s rising junior Yuki Bhambri amongst others. Team tennis is the brainchild of three former tennis players who looked to format a system that offered players a serious alternative to the usual state association run coaching schemes. Now, it has grown further. “This deal allows our players a progressive window to keep moving up the tennis ladder. Since our goals are the same we thought merging our resources is the best way forward,” said Sachdeva. Bhupathi continues to use his name and brand value to enhance opportunities for the tennis players of the future. He has already got his Foundation for Indian Sporting Talent programme which offers top youngsters an opportunity to train under world-class coaches. For the same he has raised to the extent of 60 crores plus to be used to mould players over the next decade as a part of the Apollo Mission 2018 programme. The deal allows for a more concrete feeder system wherein young talent can be monitored and guided over a number of years in order to groom them for the higher grade academies. As of now induction into the same is more sporadic rather than systematic. “We feel very confident with the talent we have in our country, if we put the right systems in place we will constantly churn out good quality players,” said Bhupathi. The joint entity — MBTT — will use the tool of Progressive Tennis which is similar to mini tennis but envisions a gradual progression for young kids starting from a much smaller court and sponge balls to the full deal. This system is fast becoming the bed rock of tennis in many European countries and its induction into India augurs well. “We believe that the system should be churning out players and not that players emerge in spite of the system. Our goal is long-term and we expect concrete results by 2012-13 only,” said CEO Gaurav Natekar. source: DNA, July 10, 2008 |
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