Very few can boast of such a legacy — two Arjuna Awards glinting on the mantle piece at home, one for the father and the other for the son. Gaurav Natekar, CEO Mahesh Bhupathi Tennis Academy and former Indian number one tennis player lives this reality everyday. “My father was the first to get an Arjuna Award in 1961, it was the first year of the award. For me to get it was pretty amazing. Now, they sit together on our mantle piece,” Gaurav says. His father Nandu M Natekar and Gaurav are among few other father and son duos who also hold that distinction — Ramesh and Ramanathan Krishnan, Milkha Singh and Jeev Milkha Singh among others.
His father was a nine time national Badminton champ, but tennis was what hooked Gaurav. This sporty “apple” didn’t fall far from the tree and the seven time Indian national tennis champion was in the city to sit on the side greens to watch his son play a game of golf at a Karnataka Golf Association tournament. So will his sons too follow that legacy? He mulls, “There might be a third generation of sport champs in the family,” though he is letting his two sons find their own ground.
He has two boys, one 13 (into golf) and a 10 year old (into football) and they might have the best learning ground there is, given that Gaurav and his wife Arati Ponnappa were both tennis players and champs.
Based in Pune now, but from Mumbai, he looks back, “My dad was unofficially World No 3 in badminton then. He always wanted me to get into sports and tennis was more my thing,” adding, “At that time, the Arjuna Award was a huge deal. Today, it is more about lobbying so it had gotten a bit tarnished. It was the highest sporting honour then, now there is the Khel Ratna.” Being on the Davis Cup team that reached the semis in 1993, his most cherished memory is, “Winning two Asian Games gold medals at Hiroshima, at that time Leander and I were the first after PT Usha, India won four golds that year, the team won for tennis, and Jaspal Rana for shooting,” he adds,
When 12 time grand slam winner Mahesh Bhupathi founded the academy in 2006, Gaurav feels it was what made them pioneers. “Today, we’re are 20 academies with 7,000 to 8,000 children, 70 to 80 coaches. We hope to tap India’s immense potential. In terms of players too, there are around 100 state players and 50 to 60 national level ones and seven international juniors,” says Gaurav.
The fact that he and Mahesh have played with each other makes this partnership work intrinsically. It is a relationship that has grown through many a tennis sparring, and now, it’s forging grassroot tennis. “We have been friends since 16, and now since we are working together, the friendship is strong, we do have our share of disagreements too. He is amazing, and has given me a free hand in running the academy — for good or bad, mostly good I think,” he says.
They are hoping to tap into more schools. “We also have tied up with the Rafael Nadal Academy, in his home town in Mallorca, Spain — with 26 courts, and we are looking at sending kids who want to get top class coaching there,” he says, adding, “Rafa is happy to associate with us and feels that India has a lot of potential,” he recalls.
Tennis has also played cupid for the former champion, “I met Arati on the tennis circuit while playing, and I have known her since she was 14, and I was 17. We found common ground, though the interest was totally from my end (he laughs).”
Quite the bookworm, with travel being a part and parcel of sports, Gaurav developed a huge fondness for reading and music to fill the travel limbo. “I was reading a book about the start-up culture in Israel, and a book about the wit of Churchill.”
Belief is what makes the ordinary excel and Gaurav and Mahesh want to change tennis, so out of quantity, quality shines, “Indians need to cultivate sports, abroad parents are taking children hiking or for sports during weekends and in India they are going to malls or playing video games. It’s time things changed as there is a lot of stress on education but not so much on sports. Newage schools should look at sports seriously, since we are the obesity and cardiovascular capital of the world,” he stresses.
Life in Pune is about family and friends when not rushing across academies for the guy who loves food, and even thinks he can cook, though everybody else thinks otherwise!
