Sport - Tennis

Apollo Tyres Mission 2018 Challenge from December 1

BANGALORE: Apollo Tyres’ mega tennis initiative — Apollo Tyres Mission 2018 Challenge — will kick off in Bangalore on December 1 and 2 at the Nike Bhupathi Tennis Village.

The programme, which would have selection and a tennis clinic spread across four metros, is aimed at identifying tennis talent in the age-group of six to 14 years. The selected children at the camp will be taken on board at the village for an intensive training camp.

It may be recalled that Apollo Tyres had earmarked Rs.100 crore for tennis development in the country, aimed at producing a Grand Slam champion by 2018. The clinic at Bangalore will be supervised and judged by Indian ace Mahesh Bhupathi, his father and noted coach Krishna Bhupathi, former Davis Cupper Prahlad Srinath, former National women’s champion Manisha Malhotra, Sandeep Kirtane, besides Mahesh’s physical trainer, Anthony Beercraft.

This eminent panel of judges will evaluate the players on the basis of their natural ability, fitness, hand-eye co-ordination and also assess their parents’ involvement in making tennis as a career option for their kids.

In a chat with The Hindu here, an Apollo Tyres spokesperson said: “This will be an on-going process done annually to pick up at least 10 kids every year. We will give them the best of facilities for training and will try and make champions out of them.”

Following the Bangalore clinic on December 1 and 2, the panel of judges will visit other cities including Mumbai (December 8 and 9), Kolkata (Dec. 15 and 16) and New Delhi (Dec. 22 and 23).

At each centre, the organisers are expecting a huge turnout and picking up a couple of winners is not going to be an easy task. But then as Krishna Bhupathi summed it up: “This indeed is a major step in finding genuine young talent.”

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