Anil Urs: The ace in the game

Sania Mirza is the toast of the country after putting in a stunning performance at the Australian Open, followed by tournaments in India and Dubai.

Offers of brand ambassadorships are pouring in and the cash register can be heard ringing endlessly. But the days of self-made sports stars are gone and the key question is: who is the talent that has enabled this 18-year-old to come into her own?

The backstage is dominated by Mahesh Bhupathi, who has been a tennis star in his own right in doubles partnership with Leander Paes.

With Sania's success Bhupathi has completed his own transformation from a tennis player to "manager of players", a la Professor Higgins who takes rough uncut diamonds and turns them into polished tennis stars.

Mahesh has a two- or three-fold agenda "" shore up Indian tennis by grooming more tennis potentials, give them the right big tournament atmosphere and also promote India as a tennis destination by organising more international level tournaments and, of course, making a big business success of himself.

The corporate vehicles he has floated for this is Globo Sports, which will groom young talent right from the grassroots level, and Globo Media Solutions which will bring quality sports events to India.

Globo Sports has set up shop in the Tennis Village on the outskirts of Bangalore and is run by his father Krishna Bhupathi.

The business model is distributed, in a way. Mahesh has not put out his own funds, except for setting up the infrastructure at the Tennis Village. The major funding comes from the sponsors of individual talents and Mahesh's job is to manage the sponsors' funds.

"His idea is to make a difference to Indian talent first, and then ride the wave along with them," says his father.

This formula worked with precision and the company tasted success with Sania Mirza.

"To realise Mahesh's vision, we (the family) have invested around $2 million in creating the Tennis Village, a five-acre campus with hostel facility and tennis courts "" both clay and synthetic "" in Bangalore to groom the right talent," says Krishna Bhupathi.

The other hands-on family members are wife Shwetha, who is really the manager, and sister Meera. Both tour the circuit with the young talents so as to give them all the support.

The Tennis Village has so far identified Rohan Bopanna, Akshata, Khira and Sharmita, who are all undergoing training there.

At the village, Krishna Bhupathi, who is pater familias in the business sense, too, is being assisted by Prahlad Srinath, the former Davis Cup player, and two other hands-on trainers.

What Mahesh is doing is not new. Globally, players like former Wimbledon champions Pat Cash and Boris Becker have demonstrated that this expert and systematic training and promotion of talent works.

Without putting numbers to the process, Krishna Bhupathi says the intricacy of the process is "mind blowing". There is the regimen of training sessions interspersed with travel to places where tournaments are held "" domestic as well as international circuits.

"Indian tennis "" both Mahesh and I are a part of it "" urgently needs to improve the basic talent available. I personally come from a generation to which nothing was available. I have played international tennis without even knowing what kind of exercise had to be done," recalls Krishna Bhupathi.

Mahesh, who has come a generation after knows what it takes to groom talent and equip it to survive competitive tennis. "It is here that he has taken a call. For this, he has my guidance and has made progress in achieving it," he notes with a degree of modesty.

It is worth investing time and resources in this since Indians are physically suited to play tennis. Their height (5.6 to 5.9 feet) and bone structure are suitable for competitive tennis and their brain power is super, he says.

The family has set eyes on teenagers upto 18, both boys and girls. They come from all corners of India. "It is here that we make a difference for them through knowledge gained from our exposure to global tennis."

The country has never lacked raw talent but has been short of technology and modern business organisation. "If you go back 100 years, we have always had world-class players in spite of our drawbacks. But it is only now that we have tennis ball manufacturers, even though their standards are not worth mentioning. And we still do not make tennis racquets in a country," bemoans Krishna Bhupathi.

The family's aim is to use its own experience and modern organisational skills to convert the talent into international success, from backstage, leaving the applause to be collected by the young stars.