Top league Doubles Tennis star Mahesh Srinivas
Bhupathi, is one of India's outstanding sporting heroes. He is known for his booming serves and hard-hitting
volleys. He was born on 7th June, 1974 in Madras, Tamilnadu. Bhupathi was educated in Dubai, Muscat and in USA. His father
Mr. C.G. Krishna Bhupathi
coached him right from his formative years, exclusively on hard courts in the
Middle East and his son has proved that hard work pays.
Mahesh has traveled extensively from the age of
14 and has played in major tournaments all over the world. He had an
outstanding two-year career at the University of Mississippi from 1994-95,
earning singles and doubles All-America honors in '95. He was the finalist
in doubles in the Under-18 at Wimbledon. He turned pro in 1995. He
teamed with Ali
Hamadeh in 1995 to win the NCAA doubles title and finished as the No. 1
player in doubles and No. 3 in singles. He was India's national
champion in 1994 and 1995 and a member of the Indian Davis
Cup team since 1995 and represents India in Davis Cup Singles and
Doubles. He won a Silver and 3 Gold medals at the
SAF Games, represented India at the Atlanta Olympics - 1996, took India to the
Quarter Finals of the Elite World Group in Davis Cup along with Leander Paes. In
1997, he became the first Indian to win a Grand Slam when he took the mixed
doubles French Open along with Japan's Rika Hiraki.
Bhupathi's partnership with Leander
Paes formed a doubles 'dream' team which took Indian tennis to heights of
glory. Their first major victory was at the 1997 ATP Gold Flake Open Tennis
tournament at Chennai. They made it a hat-trick of triumphs by winning the Gold
Flake open titles during 1998 and 1999. The duo captured six ATP doubles titles
in seven finals and qualified for ATP World doubles Championship losing to Leach-Stark in
final. In 1999, they showed their class by winning the
French Open and Wimbledon and entering the finals of the two other Grand Slam
Tournaments; the Australian and US Opens and became the first team since 1952 to
reach the final of all four Grand Slam events in the same year. They also won
the doubles title at Rolland Garros in 1999. But, as soon after they started
dominating the World Tennis scene, the world top ranked pair separated due to mutual misunderstanding.
Fortunately they came back together again after a gap of eight months, in time for the
Sydney Olympics and started regaining their lost prestige at the end of 2000,
winning the Men's Double title in Japan Open 2000 followed by Worlds Doubles
Championship in Bangalore and in 2001 Verizon Atlanta Challenge, US Clay court Championship
in Houston and at Roland Garros defeating the Czech pair of Petr Pala and Pavel
Vizner, ranked no. 2 in the world.
Mahesh has won five doubles titles in 2002,
with four different partners. Won titles in Chennai and Mallorca with Paes,
captured TMS title in Hamburg with Gambill and in Long Island with M. Bryan, and the
US Open with current partner Max Mirnyi of Belarus who teamed with him most of
the year. In 2003, he won the TMS title in Monte Carlo and in Estoril.
He received
the ' Arjuna Award' in 1996 and
India's highest honour 'Padma Shri' along with Paes on March 26, 2001. His
father, the encouraging factor behind him runs 'The Tennis Village' at
Bangalore, giving training to aspirants. Bhupathi residing in Bangalore got
married on November 24th 2002 to a Chennai model girl Shwetha Jaishankar. This
talented player keeps winning titles and making India proud.