S3 E02 | Game, Set, Match: Mahesh Bhupathi's Story of Global Domination

[00:00:00] Mahesh Bhupathi: I think some teams need a lot of communication. I think ours didn’t. I think because we knew our ability on the tennis court. As soon as that switch turned on, things were going to be different. 2001 when we won the French, I don’t think we were seeded, right? In 99 when we won, we were one of the top four seeds.

In 2001, we were not seeded. But we knew that it didn’t matter, right? Nobody wanted to play us. It was a feeling we had, right? And that’s why no matter how much we played on tour or we didn’t when we got together at the Olympics or we played a random tournament, it was just an automatic button that we had to find a way to switch.

[00:00:43] Karthik Reddy: Today, we have the privilege of hosting a great legend of Indian sport, a man who has not only conquered the world of tennis but also made a significant impact beyond the court. Our guest is none other than Mahesh Bupati, one-half of the famed Indian Express of Indian tennis. 

In a nation starved of sporting success in the mid to late 90s beyond cricket, Mahesh and Leander became global champions. Mahesh won an astounding 12 grand slams between his mixed doubles career and his men’s doubles, a lot of them with Leander. And that marked the beginnings of what India could achieve on the global stage in tennis. 

Mahesh’s impact extends well beyond the tennis court. He’s a trailblazer. He’s built a global sports management company, nurturing Indian talent, both in tennis and outside of tennis. He’s recently tied up with a large corporate to get more into sports franchise building. That’s what he does today, beyond coaching his 12-year-old daughter. And he’s trying to make a significant impact through various philanthropies in the country. From his early days as a young tennis prodigy, today as a mentor and a business owner, Mahesh Bupathi’s story is one of passion, perseverance, grit, and relentless pursuit of excellence.

In today’s podcast, I’m most interested in teasing out the similarities between winning at a global level at sport and building and nurturing and running a startup at a global level. That was the theme for this year’s podcast – ​“Winning Beyond Boundaries”. We championed that at Blume Day, and we want all of our guests for the season to actually speak a lot about what it takes to win on the global stage. And tennis and what Mahesh has done are probably one of the best examples of what we’ve seen in Indian sport. 

Mahesh, welcome to the show.

I thought we can start, Mahesh, with a little bit of parts of your history, around what does it mean to be a part of the genetic lottery, so to speak. We were all relatively privileged when we grew up in the eighties and nineties, and I know your father was an avid sportsman and took you training where you lived in the Middle East.

So walk us through a little bit of that history on how all of this unfolded. How did Mahesh Bhupati become the what are the beginnings of the tennis story? 

[00:03:17] Mahesh Bhupathi: Yeah. So talking about the genetic history, my dad used to be a tennis player. He was, let’s say ranked as high as number 6, during Ramanathan Krishnan’s era. And, at that time, the depth of Indian tennis was pretty high, right? You had Krishnan, (Jaidip) Mukerjea, Mukherjee, and (Premjit) Lall. You had Anand Amritraj and Sashi Menon. So he was a pretty high-quality tennis player from the Indian perspective. Unfortunately, he had a car accident and broke his hand, which, at that time, with the rehab and the surgeries compared to today, it was career-ending for him.

So, he pretty much decided then and there that his firstborn was going to be a tennis player, regardless of it was male or female. So, you know, when you talk about a single-minded focus/​obsession, it came at that level. My mom still tells the story about how he insisted that she come to tennis matches when I was in the stomach, so I could hear the sound of the ball. So, it was that level of obsession.

The racket was, let’s say a badminton racket was thrown into my hand because the tennis racket was too heavy when I was 3 years old. So, I could start swinging it and followed him to the tennis courts where it became a daily routine to the point where it became my own obsession one day as well. So, I think that was the history of the genetics. 

[00:04:51] Karthik Reddy: Fantastic. I had no idea of that part of the story. And it’s always fascinating to hear the origin stories. Clearly, here there was both nature and nurture involved. As you look at younger talent and people, you coach, you oversee, do you see that’s an important part of building greatness? If you want to be one of the world’s best in anything, is it important to know that you have to build this right balance of nature and nurture very early in the child’s life.

[00:05:25] Mahesh Bhupathi: Yeah, I think unless you’re able to do that within your own ecosystem. Today, I think sport is so frightfully competitive and difficult to succeed in that is impossible. For example, Sania (Mirza), if you take her example, her dad was a Ranji-level cricket player and knew nothing about tennis, but when he saw, how much Sania enjoyed it and the fact that she had something in her, he made it his obsession, which converted into the family’s obsession because, you would see the whole family, including the younger sister and the mom always at tournaments, someone had to travel with her all the time. It’s a full-hearted process. 

[00:06:14] Karthik Reddy: And it’s a family obsession. 

[00:06:16] Mahesh Bhupathi: It has to become one.

[00:06:18] Karthik Reddy: It has to be a family obsession because you’re too young to be able to do all of this. 

[00:06:20] Mahesh Bhupathi: Yeah, it is impossible. And my daughter is playing tennis today and I have 3, 4 different hats when it comes to her tennis. And as a father, it is painful to watch. The pain, the hours in the heat but it has to be done if you want the gratification. 

[00:06:43] Karthik Reddy: And I think there’s a story of you being in Wimbledon watching a match at the age of 12. Was that a part of the training or was it just like the joy of seeing what is possible? What did that moment feel like if that memory still lingers in your mind?

[00:06:59] Mahesh Bhupathi: I think it was a bit of both. I think from my father’s point of view, he wanted me to see what could lie in front of me if the work was put in, right? And I still remember the day that we stood in line and bought tickets to go in after 6 o’clock because the people coming out at 6, they leave their tickets and if you resell them, it goes to charity. So, we stood in line, bought tickets, and when we ran in, I still remember my reaction, the excitement. And because of the UK summer, we got 3, 4 hours of tennis on that day. And, yeah, I think that’s when it turned for me, right? I wanted to play there one day.

[00:07:42] Karthik Reddy: Yeah. 

[00:07:44] Mahesh Bhupathi: And again, everything I learned from my dad, I’m trying to install luckily for me at a different level with my daughter. I took her to the Wimbledon final in the women’s last year to see if it can ignite some juices. but I think this is part of the process. This is part of the process.

[00:08:01] Karthik Reddy: No. I think one important takeaway for me is as you look at young founders, for example, if they truly want to build on a world stage, they have to get exposed to it. And while we have a phenomenal startup ecosystem out here, a lot of the kids are not exposed yet and it is important to go see what’s out there. And that’s why we create these, like, almost religious trips to the valley because you have to go and see what is possible. And it sounds very similar. 

I would love to get into specific sorts of match instances, but before I get there, clearly, were you a part of the Britannia Amritraj Tennis Academy (BAT) in Chennai?

[00:08:41] Mahesh Bhupathi: No.

[00:08:42] Karthik Reddy: No.

[00:08:42] Mahesh Bhupathi: I think my dad and Vijay played a decent amount of doubles together. And Vijay asked my dad to send me, but my dad refused because he was in control of my tennis and he didn’t want me to go into an ecosystem where there were, I think, 12 boys. 

[00:08:58] Karthik Reddy: That’s right. That was the first batch in the late 80s. 

[00:09:00] Mahesh Bhupathi: Because he felt the attention would obviously go away, right? because Vijay was not going to be there and there were two foreign coaches. So my dad wasn’t comfortable. 

[00:09:12] Karthik Reddy: Yeah. And so when your rise in Indian ranks obviously happened, what makes a transition to becoming a global player? So you start playing the global circuit. What were the differences you found when you got out of this comfort zone of Chennai? You were living in Chennai at that point?

[00:09:28] Mahesh Bhupathi: Yeah, I was born in Chennai, but when I was 7, my dad got transferred. He was with Standard Chartered. So, he got transferred to Dubai. 

[00:09:34] Karthik Reddy: Okay. 

[00:09:35] Mahesh Bhupathi: So, I spent most of my childhood in the Gulf. 

[00:09:38] Karthik Reddy: Okay. And so you were already acclimatized in that sense. 

[00:09:42] Mahesh Bhupathi: Yeah, acclimatized. I wouldn’t take it as a positive because there were no tennis players in the Gulf at the time. I think my dad and me were literally the only two people with a racket. 

[00:09:50] Karthik Reddy: Yeah. 

[00:09:53] Mahesh Bhupathi: So, there was no competition for me. In the summer, I used to come to India to compete. 

[00:09:58] Karthik Reddy: Okay. 

[00:10:00] Mahesh Bhupathi: But otherwise, unfortunately, 11 months a year, there were no tournaments in Dubai at that time. 

[00:10:03] Karthik Reddy: Yeah. 

[00:10:04] Mahesh Bhupathi: And which was challenging, right? Today, you see the kids and juniors, you’ve got to compete at least once a month. To understand how to win, to learn from losses and so on and so forth. But at that time, I was able to figure it out without that. 

[00:10:18] Karthik Reddy: And when did that turn? So at what age did you have to like actually push yourself to get into that international circuit?

[00:10:25] Mahesh Bhupathi: So it didn’t really turn for me. I think one of the main reasons was because of the lack of competition, right? I was not a very good junior. I was never in the top 10 in India either, but there is a vast difference between junior tennis and men’s tennis, right? I think the way some of the juniors play, they only play to win.

They don’t play the right kind of style. And my father was very anal about, being an aggressive tennis player, not worrying about the results in juniors. I could never really crack the Indian junior circuit, but when it came to the transition, then, all the gyaan, so as to say, that my dad gave me actually came true because of the aggressive style kind of transition in the men’s game, whereas all those kids who beat me had to go to college and now are working a desk job. 

[00:11:20] Karthik Reddy: I think, I wanted to walk you through a few examples. So the first, sort of, doubles title that you won. At least our research suggests that 1997 French Open, you won with a Japanese woman, Rika Hiraki, and you, at that point, became the first Indian tennis player to win a Grand Slam and you were still looking for a partner. So maybe, how does one go find the equivalent of a co-founder in the middle of a tournament? And how do you make that work? 

[00:11:58] Mahesh Bhupathi: It was, pure luck to be honest. 1997 was my first full year on the tour. Coming into the French Open, probably the second grand slam of my life. I had never played mixed doubles in my life. 

And I was ranked 55 in the world and I still remember my coach Enrico (Piperno) said to me the morning, so there’s a sign-in deadline for mixed doubles. He said, ​“Bro, why don’t you sign in for mixed doubles? It’s a couple of grand extra if you get in and you get accommodation per diem.” So I said sure so we went to the mixed double signed in and all the top players had signed in. I was 55 in the world. I put my name down there Mahesh Bhupathi 55 ranking looking and I had a practice court at 2 o’clock and the deadline was at 2. 

So, Enrico said why don’t you go and warm up? I’ll stay here and see if anybody comes in and wants to play with you. So, apparently, 5 minutes to 2, this girl comes in and you know, how polite Japanese are. So, Enrico kind of ambushes her because that’s his style. And she’s 26 in the world. And she’s actually 4 foot 11. And Enrico says, would you like to play with Mahesh? He had to show her a photo of me and because nobody knew me on tour at that time. So, she had no choice either. We were the last team to get it on the sign-in. I think we were like 80 combined and the cutoff was us.

So he comes running to the tennis court and says, we’ve made another two grand this week. And that was the excitement of the day. I still remember we played our first match and we were down 3 match points with a man serving. And we found a way to win it and I came off the court Enrico said you’re the worst mixed doubles player I’ve ever seen in my life. Because you hit every ball to the man, instead of trying to exploit the weakness on the court. 

But like I said, it’s pure luck. We got better with every match and then we got into a zone. I think we beat the fourth, the second, and the first seeds in the last three matches. 

[00:14:09] Karthik Reddy: Amazing. Lovely story. As you keep going up these pinnacles, now that you’ve won, I guess you’ve conquered that, sort of, barrier in your head. Of course, I can be a Grand Slam champion, but how is it any different from playing other tournaments on the tour? The Grand Slam’s stage is much bigger, lot more people watching, I get that, but as a player, we can never put ourselves in your shoes, but what does that pressure feel like? What’s different in a Grand Slam?

[00:14:35] Mahesh Bhupathi: So I think the pressure I felt in 97 from years later was very different because in 97 it was like, every match was a little better paycheck and there was actually no pressure and it was just funny to watch all the top seeds trying to figure out, who these people were, but we enjoyed just beating up on them.

[00:14:56] Karthik Reddy: Yeah. 

[00:14:57] Mahesh Bhupathi: But then, when, we became the team that people were challenging to beat all the time, then you had to have plan A, plan B, plan C, because you were there to win every tournament. You were not to get there to get the paycheck. 

[00:15:15] Karthik Reddy: And, of course, your partnership with Leander is like legendary. How did that start? No interview can be complete without a little bit of that history. And you won three doubles titles with Leander, including the French and Wimbledon just in 99. And suddenly you peak to like becoming the number 1 player in the world. 

So maybe a little bit of color on what worked in that partnership. How did it start? and that’s a classic co-founder journey. So you discover each other and you live with each other for 10 years. You probably know each other better than even, your respective others or girlfriends or spouses at that point in time. How did that feel like in any lessons, the partnership lessons?

[00:16:03] Mahesh Bhupathi: Like I said, I wasn’t a very good junior. So I used my tennis to take a tennis scholarship and I went to the University of Mississippi, which is a very big tennis school. And I think I was doing well in the college scene. So news had trickled down to India. There’s this Indian kid there who’s winning matches. And I got invited to play, to be part of the Davis Cup squad, which I think in 1994 September, we played South Africa in Jaipur. I didn’t make the team, but I was the fifth member. So maybe I made the team, but I didn’t play. 

So, that was my first, real interaction tennis-wise, with all the players on the team. And there was a lot of chatter. So later that year, I had taken the fall off to play some tournaments. I went to Jakarta for a Challenger to play singles qualifying. And I remember Leander was in the draw. He was a second seed in the singles. I had just qualified for the singles. I was in the hotel lobby. He walked in, and he came straight up to me, obviously greeted me because we were the only two Indians there. And he said, listen, I was supposed to play with Shuzo Matsuoka here, but he just pulled out, would you like to play doubles? 

So Leander had already all the heroics of the Olympics with Ramesh and Davis Cup.]. For me, he was like, I’m trying to play pretty cool and not react, and the one thing that stood out to me immediately, he said, listen, the only reason I’m asking you to play is because I think we can win the tournament, otherwise I wouldn’t waste my time. Which, you know, someone can construe as arrogant, but as you get to know Leander, you know his mindset. So, yeah, obviously, I said yes and, yeah, immediately we won almost every Challenger we played. We evolved from that tournament in Jakarta. 

[00:18:09] Karthik Reddy: Amazing. And that led to a lot of memorable wins, some really tough defeats, highs and lows. How do you, sort of, help each other go through those, sort of, lows when you’re a team, and is it because your different personalities help or how do you like to pull yourself back up and say. Hey, the next tournament’s down the corner. We’re going to win that.

I’m just curious to try and understand at the pinnacle of the sport, what the mindset feels like when you’re down from a tough phase.

[00:18:49] Mahesh Bhupathi: I think some, let’s say teams need a lot of communication. I think ours didn’t. I think because we knew our ability on the tennis court as a team. And when we were going through patches where we were not winning matches, both of us knew, the coaches would be talking a lot, trying to do a lot of the tennis court, but both of us knew as soon as we clicked, maybe one of us was feeling low on confidence. Both of us were feeling low on confidence at times.

We were just losing to teams we didn’t have to, but we knew that as soon as that switch turned on, things were gonna be different. Like in 2002 or 2001 when we won the French, I don’t think we were seeded, right? In 99, when we won, we were one of the top 4 seeds. In 2001, we were not seeded.

But we knew that it didn’t matter. Nobody wanted to play us. Even in 2011 when we came back, nobody wanted to play us. It was not a fun team to play against. We were not seeded and we knew as soon as… it was a feeling we had right? And that’s why no matter how much we played on tour or we didn’t when we got together at the Olympics or we played a random tournament, it was just an automatic button that we had to find a way to switch on.

[00:20:08] Karthik Reddy: Was it what 12 years, 15 years, the partnership, in phases?

[00:20:11] Mahesh Bhupathi: 96 to about 2011. 

[00:20:16] Karthik Reddy: So, 15 years. Awesome. Two matches that, again, we dug up one was this Athens Olympic match where you played Federer and Yves Allegro, you won the first set. In the second set, tiebreak. You end up going and winning that. And Federer has just come from like a tough loss to a Czech player. So he had a lot at stake when he came to play you guys. And, you folks had started by winning against Andy Roddick and Mardy Fish, who were like, I think, pretty big at that point of time.

And so when you get down to especially tiebreaks, which is like the toughest, even to watch, leave alone play, and that too, I don’t know whether Federer was as big as he became eventually, but what are you thinking about from a point to point perspective during a tiebreak? Is it any different from playing the rest of the set and the rest of the match? 

[00:21:23] Mahesh Bhupathi: The tiebreak is always, yeah, I mean, it’s a different kind of pressure. You have to play the scoreboard a little tighter than the regular set. But when we’re playing players like that, there’s no margin for error, right? I still remember when we saw the draw, we had Roddick and Federer back to back. The first set against Roddick and Fish also was a tiebreaker. And I still remember I had to serve 5‑all against Roddick in the first set tiebreaker, second serve. And, if you put 85% second serve most of the time with Mahesh kicking a second serve and Leander at the net, you felt good about winning the point.

But with Andy Roddick, I hit the second serve that hit the back of the line, right? Because I had to, otherwise, he’s a world-class champion and he was going to make me suffer. And it was the same with, Roger, we took Roger out of the match. We did not hit one ball that we didn’t have to him. We attacked his opponent relentlessly where literally the guy wanted to cry. So we had to, you know, that’s the way doubles work. 

[00:22:35] Karthik Reddy: It’s pretty much since you brought this story of the French Open, your first Mixed Doubles encounter. As Mixed Doubles evolved in your repertoire, did you become a little bit more attacking towards the weaker player in that?

[00:22:55] Mahesh Bhupathi: Yeah. After that match, I became relentless. I think I’m the only guy in the world who’s won a Grand Slam with 7 different partners in mixed. So, I just, yeah, I became relentless after that.

[00:23:07] Karthik Reddy: And, since you brought that up, it was a question I had for later, but since it’s in the flow, when you work with different partners, how long and how quick is that adaptation? And what does each partner demand of? Is it easy to adapt when it comes to doubles because players get into the groove within the first game and then you keep moving from there?

[00:23:28] Mahesh Bhupathi: It’s normally not very easy to adapt, but my game style… So obviously I had to always find someone who was good on the forehand side because backhand was my forte, but my game style was solid. I would make my serves. I would make my return. So, I would always need someone who was a little bit of a playmaker. Leander was a shotmaker. Todd Woodbridge was a shotmaker, Mark Knowles. Even my mixed partners, I mean, Sania, was a shotmaker, (Mary) Pierce, (Martina) Hingis, and all the girls I won with. 

So I would keep it stable. I was not going to do anything too fancy. And then when the time came, their shots and my stability would normally get us across the line. 

[00:24:07] Karthik Reddy: Awesome. And then in the same Athens tournament, obviously, we were hoping to bring us a medal and came very close, Bronze medal match, final set, goes all the way to 16 – 14. Happens obviously in sports all the time. And I know you touched upon it, but how does a team like recover from something like that and say, get back to the next day, how long does the disappointment last, and what does it take to overcome that? Because again, in startups, we see this all the time, in the 10-year journey, you’re going to see spectacular collapses on a weekly, monthly basis. So just any cues for startup founders. 

[00:24:52] Mahesh Bhupathi: It’s very hard to compare losing out an Olympic medal with a startup kind of lull. But you don’t recover from that. 

[00:25:03] Karthik Reddy: You don’t recover. 

[00:25:04] Mahesh Bhupathi: That’s something you don’t recover from because, when you saw the draw in Athens, like I said, we had Roddick, followed by Federer, followed by the third seeds from Zimbabwe, (Wayne) Black, (Kevin) Ullyett. And when we beat them, we were playing high-quality tennis. And we got to the semi-finals. I remember that the other 3 teams were (Nicolas) Kiefer/​(Rainer) Schuttler, (Mario) Ancic/(Ivan) Ljubicic, and Fernando Gonzalez/​Nicolas Massu, were all six high-quality singles players.

So, we automatically from not being the favorites became the favorites to win the gold. And, we knew it, right? This was our shot to win the gold. We were there to win the gold. We were not there to win the bronze. And in the morning of the match, a semi-final against Schuttler and Kiefer, we warmed up.

It was a great warmup and we were expecting, when we walked onto the court, obviously we were expecting a lot of Indian support because by now the media had picked up the opportunity and everybody at the games village was talking about, what they were expecting from us. 

And we walked onto the court and there were at least 4000 or 5000 Germans that welcomed us with a huge scream, which I think was the first jolt to the heart. And then pressure took over Nicolas Kiefer, who is not the biggest sportsman on the court started getting under Leander’s skin and it just snowballed into a disastrous match for us. 

And after that match, we had the day off the next day and everyone knew they could see it. Both our families got special permission to come to the games village. They came to spend the day. We didn’t want to see anybody. We just wanted to be left alone. And I think that affected the bronze medal match also because deep down inside, we fought hard, but it was still not going to be a win if we won that match.

[00:27:05] Karthik Reddy: Yeah. we did speak about, you know, winning with so many partners. Any funny stories of how you navigate sort of cultural differences? Everyone is from a different country and does that come in the way?

[00:27:21] Mahesh Bhupathi: No, it’s always a positive. I guess you learn a lot about different cultures, different cuisines, words in different languages that you could use on the court with your partners. So, you know, a lot of good international stories. 

[00:27:39] Karthik Reddy: Awesome. And you won your first Grand Slam as we have recounted in 97, last one in 2012. 15 years, not easy in any sport to be on top of a game for that long. I know the men’s champions over the last 20 years have shown they’re made from a sort of entirely different gene. But you were kind of preceded that in some sense and, in doubles at least, what kind of discipline do you need to keep doing that for that length of time? We talked about your training and then suddenly, you’ve arrived at the world scene, but you’ve got to sustain this for two decades almost. 

[00:28:22] Mahesh Bhupathi: Yeah, it’s a painful process. A lot of people don’t see what happens behind the scenes, right from the physical work to be able to do this. And more importantly, the recovery work on a daily basis. That includes the stretching and the massage and the ice baths that allow you to get back on the court the next day and perform, right? So it’s a long process. It was even probably more painful for me because, in those 15 years, I had to deal with shoulder surgery and back surgery and still come back and compete at the highest level, but it’s part and parcel of the sport. And tennis is such a physical sport. And today you see, I mean, both (Carlos) Alcaraz and (Jannik) Sinner who are competing for the title in Paris have been injured the last 3, 4 weeks. So, it’s so physical. And our bodies are not built for that, right? 

[00:29:12] Karthik Reddy: Yeah. Putting them through unrealistic expectations. 

[00:29:14] Mahesh Bhupathi: Yeah. 

[00:29:15] Karthik Reddy: So that’s a physical aspect. So the mental aspect, I know you spoke about overcoming disappointments, picking up the sorrows of that loss and then getting to the next tournament, can’t be that easy either. It’s probably equally challenging. So, in most solo sports or even with one team member, you’re still playing a lot on the court between your ears and your head, right?

How do you allow others to come and influence that? And your dad was a phenomenal coach as you grew up. And how do you go and find people who can assist you on that journey? Because I’m sure that’s also a super tough part of the journey. 

[00:29:59] Mahesh Bhupathi: Yeah. I think it’s extremely important to surround yourself with people who, A, believe in what you want to do and where you want to get to regardless of the challenges that will, you know, or the hurdles that come along the way.

And it’s the nature of the world to constantly give Gyaan right now. And you have to stay focused and I think a big part of it is how much you love it, how much passion you have. And I was just talking to someone, actually my wife yesterday about, these 4 great champions, which we’ve called the big four.

They’re all sadly going to hobble away from the sport, right? Roger had surgery. Rafa’s had surgery. Novak’s got a torn meniscus a year before. Andy has a steel hip. And Pete Sampras won the US Open and called it quits. So, we can’t fault these 4 guys because they just love it so much. They’re not doing it for the money. I promise you. They all have enough money because it’s just an obsession to compete at the highest level and be at these big tournaments. You know, that’s part and parcel of it. 

If you’re not obsessed, I don’t believe you’re going to make it at the highest level in anything. 

[00:31:10] Karthik Reddy: It reminded us it has become so competitive now, globally, at every level, at every sport. It was not like the eighties where a lot of countries and players didn’t have the resources. Now if there’s talent, there are resources chasing and that changes everything. 

There was one reference that we came across where somebody asks Federer’s coach in this book, what can you teach Federer? And, you know, he knows everything already. And then he says something kind of interesting, which says, even for him, sometimes it’s important to keep listening to the best lessons, right? Keep low to hit the ball. Because it’s in your motion, but you need to be reminded. 

How important has it been for you in your journey to have your coach come and remind you of don’t forget all these key aspects and how many times have you found that even as good as you were, you needed to be retooled every year or every few years? 

[00:32:15] Mahesh Bhupathi: It was every day. I had arguably one of the better backhands on tour when it came to return, but I still hit 30, 40 of them every day in practice, regardless. If you’re not at it, building on your strengths and working on your weaknesses, there’s no chance to get better. And I mean, it’s just a mindset. You hear these kids talk today, right? Jannik Sinner is the new number one in the world. In every interview, after he won the Australian Open, he says, I’m learning. Every day, I’m learning. 

And that’s a scary thing because people who don’t understand it are sitting back and say, what is he talking about? But it’s actually a fact. I mean he’s not there to now win 2 Grand Slams, he’s there to take on Novak’s record, right? That’s how these kids think. And he probably believes he can in the next 10, 15 years. 

[00:33:04] Karthik Reddy: That’s incredible. And, what is a good coach-mentee relationship? Like what are the big takeaways for you? What have you enjoyed most about working with good coaches? 

[00:33:19] Mahesh Bhupathi: So I think, yeah, it has to be a comfort level to be able to absorb what he tells you. I think the coach needs to understand the right time to talk about, whatever he wants to give the gyaan. I think he has to be able to pick his moments. He has to be able to take feedback from the player as well. I’ve obviously worked with a lot of coaches. Some just, don’t pick the right moment, especially after a loss. 

It’s a very personal relationship, and understanding the player is a big part of it, right? Sometimes you have a bad loss, you don’t even want to talk till the next morning breakfast, right? Just leave me alone. Let me kind of stew in my own juices and we’ll chat tomorrow. So the coach needs to understand all that. 

[00:34:08] Karthik Reddy: Is there a favorite you want to name or?

[00:34:11] Mahesh Bhupathi: No, luckily all my coaches were friends of mine, so they knew me well enough, to kind of… You know, I was friends first and I brought them on to help me with my tennis. I mean the one coach who definitely made a difference to our game was Bob Carmichael who worked very closely with Leander and me on our doubles. And he was an Australian ex-doubles legend. And he definitely made an impact on how… We were raw and we had the tools, but how he put the whole piece together was, you know, Bob was instrumental in that.

[00:34:47] Karthik Reddy: You talked about and used the word friend, is it in a sport like tennis, do you think that’s a necessary ingredient or just you got lucky? And this optionality, is it better to be like truly a sort of, not a soulmate, but like a good friend who understands the person as a friend, not just… 

[00:35:06] Mahesh Bhupathi: It’s not a prerequisite, but in tennis, I think you need somebody around who is a friend. If you coach. Is, like I said, I had, I was lucky, but if your coach is not a friend, you need to have someone there, right? It’s a lonely business. You’re traveling, 35, 40 weeks a year. If you don’t have a parent or a friend around apart from your support system, which is your coach, your physio, your trainer, and everything, then you could lose it mentally very quickly. 

[00:35:31] Karthik Reddy: Yeah. I have only asked because of late, you do notice on the stands. There is that friend, if there is along with the coach and the wife if there is one. And similarly, even if you see a Drive To Survive on Netflix, most of the drivers have one of those friends around. It is very lonely otherwise.

[00:35:51] Mahesh Bhupathi: It is tough.

[00:35:51] Karthik Reddy: It is tough. I’m going to, probably try to bring a natural transition to what drove the decision eventually, like you said, how much do you punish yourself? When do you know it’s time to hang up your boots? And to turn like a new chapter. So, what is the thinking around then? And did you know what you were going to do after? Or do you just want to take some time off? And what is that point where you decided I’m done with playing tennis at a competitive level? And what can I do with all the skills I’ve got? And we’ll come to a little bit of your business story. 

[00:36:30] Mahesh Bhupathi: So I think that’s a personal choice, which, as an athlete who’s been through it, you can never fault anyone. And I don’t think there’s ever a right or wrong time, right? I think a lot of players at the top, who’ve played the highest level will want to compete only till they can compete at the highest level and consistently, right? 

I mean if you ask me today with a couple of months of practice, can I play one good match? Probably. Can I play two good matches in two days? No chance, right? Because the next day my body will not get out of bed. 

So, you want to compete at the level that you are comfortable with consistently. Once it goes downhill, I think a lot of players stick around because they have no options. Unfortunately, most of them need to get into the tennis ecosystem, either as a coach or a mentor or a commentator. And it is what it is, right? I mean, today sportsmen across the world, there is a lack of education, right? Because you cannot do both when you are in 12, 13, 14.

If you’re not putting 6 hours a day into your sport, you are recreational. You cannot be a global champion. So, the school suffers. I know very few players like Mario Ancic, who beat us at the Olympics, right? He went to college and got his law degree after he had an injury.

And today he’s working at Morgan Stanley in New York. So you have to… that’s your only option if you want to get into the real world. Otherwise, you have to stay in the tennis ecosystem because you don’t know better. Like today, I’m part of a certain business ecosystem. I have no clue on how to run an Excel sheet.

So I always need some people to come and sit with me and I’m telling them what to do with the numbers and they’ll have to help me build the sheet. So it is what it is. But knowing when the right time is a very personal choice. 

[00:38:27] Karthik Reddy: And the idea of what to do post tennis, like what were your natural choice sets at that point? And what drove you to start Globosport and think about that as your natural next venture? 

[00:38:48] Mahesh Bhupathi: Yeah. So I started Globosport 10 years before I retired, which I’m happy about. Some say it was a mistake, but because when Leander and me were number 1 in the world, we were just so poorly managed in this country as someone who would manage us as a team.

And I was obviously traveling all the time. So I was seeing how IMG was doing it or Octagon was doing it with other players. And there was just a humongous void here, right? IMG was present in India, but they were not managing any talent. So that’s when I kind of said we need to do something.

And, in 3, 4 years, we became the biggest agency in the country. Only, I think there was a lack of choice. We signed Saif. We signed Sania. Next thing you knew, we had everyone from Ranbir Kapoor to Hrithik to Ajay, everybody was on our roster. 

[00:39:40] Karthik Reddy: And are you happy with how that business has grown and…?

[00:39:43] Mahesh Bhupathi: So that’s a big business in India today, but I was obviously playing professional tennis and I was, let’s say, I kind of incorporated the business and the idea, but I did not have the time to build my relationships with the talent. And that was definitely not something I was anyway, the part of my repertoire if I was here. So, all these offshoots you see, collective, who are still all my friends, Cornerstone, they’re all kind of offshoots of Globosport. And they went on to build their own wealth, which I can’t fault them for but, you know, today, the business is doing well in the country.

[00:40:23] Karthik Reddy: And what keeps you busy today other than making your daughter a future champ? 

[00:40:27] Mahesh Bhupathi: Yeah, that’s definitely… I don’t know about the future champ, but I’m giving her all the tools. Everything else is up to her but yeah, I’m working with a group called APL Apollo in Delhi, helping them build a bit of a sports and entertainment ecosystem. And, yeah, I’m enjoying it, but we’re based in Dubai now. So, I travel to India once a month, but other than that, her tennis is a prime focus. 

[00:40:56] Karthik Reddy: And apart from APL Apollo, do you like work beyond your daughter? Do you like coach other talent or…? 

[00:41:06] Mahesh Bhupathi: No, I don’t. Sadly, I don’t have the patience for it, or honestly, I don’t have the stomach for it either, because it’s so difficult. And we have a small brand of tennis academies around India, 5 or 6. And, you know, even today, if I make a visit, the first question the parent asks me is when is my kid going to win the national championship or some of them even say, when is he going to play Wimbledon? And, they don’t get the complexities around it. I just stick to what I can do within my ecosystem.

[00:41:39] Karthik Reddy: But you have been associated with a player like, upcoming star like Sumit Nagal. To take a step back when you think about, I think, these are all intertwined questions, but when you look at Indian talent today, has anything changed from the eighties? Is it just sheer numbers or is the infrastructure, the quality, the knowledge, the preparedness, is it much better? And I know every country is probably doing this, the Eastern European countries. So, the scale of competition is not going to diminish, but do we have a better shot when you look at Indian talent in Indian tennis today?

And from your lens, I know you’re not a scout or you’re not doing this professionally, but I’m trying to always draw analogies to my world in the startup world, how do you spot or know that, hey, there’s a spark here? And this could be a future Wimbledon champion, girl or boy or have a shot at it.

And when you look back at your own development, is there something that you can correlate to the way you and Leander grew up as tennis players? And is there any sort of pattern matching that can be done at all? 

[00:42:52] Mahesh Bhupathi: Yeah, I think coaching is very different from mentoring. And I think you will agree with me when I say that, you know, you sit across the table and listen to someone make a pitch. I think immediately you’ll understand if this guy gets what he’s saying or he’s trying to blow smoke up your ass, right? 

When I met Sumit, when he was 11 years old, I was there, on these tennis courts, looking at hundreds of kids, trying to single out, some talented ones. And I had a team of coaches with me who were all ex-Davis Cup players doing it. And I remember we didn’t pick him. 

And he tugged at my shirt and he says, please watch me play. And I watched him play for two minutes. And I saw his forehand, which was at 11, which had, something that 11 year old should not have in his forehand. And I said, whoa. 

So then immediately I brought him into the fold. His family absolutely had no money to play tennis, if they were going to pursue it. So, my role was to make sure that he had the right access to the right coaches and the way to fund it. And which luckily for him, we were able to do. He’s also been through a couple of surgeries, but he’s finally in the top 100. 

You know, can a kid become a champion? That’s a very wide definition, right? I mean a lot of it depends on their heart and head once they get there, right? Getting them to the Grand Slam is, I think there’s a process where we can do that. But how deep they go is all dependent on their heart and their head, right? Can they manage the pressure, right? So Sumit, for example, beat this guy called Matteo Arnaldi at the Monte Carlo Open 4 weeks ago. Arnaldi was in the fourth round of the French Open, right? 

So can you deal with a big stage? That’s a big part of it. And no, I don’t, to answer your question about Indian tennis, there is no ecosystem here. Unless we have miracles every 10,15 years, there will never be champions coming out of India. 

[00:45:07] Karthik Reddy: And what can change that? I know in the past, we used to try and see if we can send the best kids, at least fictionally, one needs to assume that you can send them to the equivalent of the Nick Bollettieri Academy, and I’m sure there are 10 new ones like that. And even when Bindra won the gold, it was obviously a support system that could support something to build world-class facilities. Is that the best way out to spot talent and give them a shot between 12, 13 to 15, 16, to send them to a global stage?

[00:45:41] Mahesh Bhupathi: No, honestly, that’s a misconception, right? So, Abhinav already had something in him. He was supported by the Lakshmi Mittal Champions Trust and he was training in Germany, right? 

But if you want to build a system in tennis, you have to have thousands of kids playing tennis at 10 and 11 years old, right? And from those thousand who are playing with the green dot ball, you will pick 400 who will move to yellow ball You will pick 200 at 12 and then that’ll become a 100. And then you’ll have like Spain, 15, like France, 15 in the top 100 every year. That’s the system, right? 

If a corporate comes in and says, Mahesh, pick the best 12-year-olds, let me send them to Bollettieri. I said, you know, they’ll be very happy. And IMG did this, like 10 years ago, all the ones who went to Bollettieri went to tennis scholarships around America and today they have jobs. It’s good for the kids, but if you’re building champions, we got to start at 10, we got to have North zone, East zone, West zone, and South zone. And, you know, there has to be a system which happens in these countries. That’s why all these countries have a constant churn. 

[00:46:48] Karthik Reddy: And you seem to have a plan in your head, but…

[00:46:52] Mahesh Bhupathi: I have a plan in my head and I kind of tried it. It’s frustrating. I’ve kind of waved the flag, the white flag and given up because it’s, A, it needs capital. B, there are enough people in the wrong places of power across sports in India, right? Who just don’t do anything and don’t want others to do anything, which is sad, right? 

And, BCCI has an amazing system because they’re private. They’ve got capital. And you see the depth. We can field 3 teams at the World Cup, right? And all could probably be in the semis. That’s, the depth of consumer we have here. We have the numbers. 

Why is China always 1, 2, 3 at the Olympics? They have the numbers, they have the system. We can do it, but we always step back and say, listen, India has other problems of poverty and electricity and water and food, which is true. But if we want to ever become a serious sporting nation. We got to put the muscle behind it.

[00:47:56] Karthik Reddy: So, Mahesh, thanks again for a wonderful conversation. As I want to reiterate the idea today was to highlight one of India’s sort of sporting giants who’s shown what it means to win beyond boundaries. I think India across all fields, like you mentioned right at the end, has this complex of can we become world beaters? We’ve done it in cricket. We’ve done it in some parts of Bollywood, by exporting our culture and winning big globally. We’ve had some doyens of sports who won Olympic medals, who won Grand Slams. And so we hope that this theme becomes, sort of, commonplace and when we meet 15, 20 years later on a sharing a drink, we have a lot more stories of these to be proud of. So, thanks again. 

To end, just wanted to have rapid-fire questions, just to get a sense of some quick reactions on your sort of tennis history and weaving a little bit of the startup ecosystem. 

Your toughest Grand Slam victory? 

[00:49:05] Mahesh Bhupathi: Wimbledon 99. 

[00:49:08] Karthik Reddy: Any reasons because you’ve…

[00:49:08] Mahesh Bhupathi: Well, I think both the quarterfinal and semifinal were 5 set matches. I was injured which I hurt myself in the third round. So, I was playing with heavily strapped thigh. Quarterfinal, we came back from 2 sets to love down against a very tough team who we lost in the US Open final to. And even in the Wimbledon final, we were down a set. So miracle.

[00:49:34] Karthik Reddy: Fantastic. And your best on-court partner other than Leander, who you’ve played a lot.

[00:49:39] Mahesh Bhupathi: Tough. I’m going to have to go with Martina Hingis. She had an understanding of the doubles game that I haven’t even seen with men. 

[00:49:53] Karthik Reddy: Okay. And you won once with her? 

[00:49:55] Mahesh Bhupathi: Once. 

[00:49:57] Karthik Reddy: Favorite men’s and women’s singles players of all time who’ve been? 

[00:50:01] Mahesh Bhupathi: Men would be Roger Federer. Women, Steffi Graf. 

[00:50:05] Karthik Reddy: Okay. Do you run into these people, by the way, once in a while?

[00:50:09] Mahesh Bhupathi: Yeah, all the time. 

[00:50:12] Karthik Reddy: Okay. And your advice to young Indian tennis players? 

[00:50:15] Mahesh Bhupathi: You know, don’t feel shy to dream big. I think, a lot of kids today want to be national champions. A lot of parents today want to send their kids to college with a tennis scholarship. But I think we have proven time and time again, not only doubles or mixed doubles, today’s Sumit competing in the main draw of Grand Slam that we can be there, you’ve got to be in it to win it. So the first job is to get in there and then, plot your journey. 

[00:50:47] Karthik Reddy: And if there’s, I know it’s difficult to identify a word or a phrase, but if there was one trait that separates the winners from the rest, what would that be? 

[00:50:55] Mahesh Bhupathi: I think discipline. 

[00:50:58] Karthik Reddy: We hear that a lot. And you’ve played the role of a startup founder and multiple avatars, would it be fair to say that all of this is translatable into building a long-lasting company as well? Would you say that?

[00:51:17] Mahesh Bhupathi: Yes, I think everything. I think that’s why I encourage parents to put their kids into sport, even if they’re not going professionally, the competition, how to deal with losses. How to react to winning, how to figure out when things are not going well on the court, and solutions to win the match. It just teaches you a lot. The exposure, the ability to either lose to someone or beat someone and talk to them after the match, because, you know, you play them again in the next tournament. There’s a lot of things that sports can teach you that go well in the business world. 

[00:51:53] Karthik Reddy: Fantastic. Thanks for the wonderful lessons. Great conversation. And inspiring another generation of tennis players, not that you don’t do it in many ways, but I hope this conversation reaches a lot more ears on that front as well. Thank you.

[00:52:07] Mahesh Bhupathi: Thank you.