Former national and Asian Games singles tennis champion Gaurav Natekar, and winner of 12 Grand Slam doubles titles Mahesh Bhupathi, are co-promoters of the Mumbai-based Mahesh Bhupathi Tennis Academies Pvt. Ltd (MBTA, estb. 2006), a company that offers world-class tennis coaching programmes to school students.

While Bhupathi is still busy participating in tennis tournaments around the world and is a director and occasional coach, Natekar who played Davis Cup for India and won two gold medals at the Hiroshima Asian Games (1994), is the chief executive of the company. According to him, 100 MBTA coaches in 35 centres (schools and clubs) countrywide train 10,000 students in the age group 4-14.

Newspeg. MBTA is in the process of organising an epic national inter-school tennis tournament in 2014, in which over 25,000 students from 500 primary-secondary schools are expected to participate. Winners will be awarded a coaching stint abroad, centre court tickets at Wimbledon and a chance to interact with tennis champion Roger Federer.

Genesis. Natekar is an alumnus of Madras Christian College Higher Secondary School, the Britannia Amritraj Tennis Residential Academy, Chennai and BMCC College, Pune. After graduating in commerce, he and his wife Aarti Ponappa, f our times national women’s tennis champion, promoted several sports goods stores under the name and style of Natekar Sports which have proved very successful.

Nevertheless, dissatisfied with “the unorganised and amateurish manner’’ in which tennis is being taught in schools, Natekar teamed up with Bhupathi to launch MBTA six years ago. Children are coached twice a week for a modest monthly fee of Rs.250.

Direct talk. “For the past half-century sports education in India has been given minimal importance. Our objective is to provide high-quality tennis coaching to children in big and small towns, build sports infrastructure, and provide well-trained coaches so that our best stars can compete on equal terms in tennis tournaments around the world,’’ says Natekar.

Future plans. Currently engaged in starting the MBTA programme in Euro schools (of the Eurokids chain) and the Educomp group of schools in Patiala, Amritsar, Meerut, Surat and Pune, Natekar has chalked out ambitious expansion and development plans for the company. “With offers from major construction companies building townships, residential complexes and leisure resorts pouring into our Delhi and Mumbai offices, we are targeting to multiply our academies to 100 in India and abroad within 36 months. It won’t be long before India — which has an abundance of promising young players — begins producing Wimbledon and Grand Slam champions,’’ says Natekar.

Power to your elbow!

Bharati Thakore (Mumbai)