Sports India

Mahesh Bhupathi’s association with Bengal is all too well-known, but when it comes to opening a centre of the Mahesh Bhupathi Tennis Academies (MBTA) here, his company Globosport is hardly keen. According to former tennis player Gaurav Natekar, who is also the head of Globosport’s Academies and Infrastructure Development, Bengal doesn’t figure in their scheme of things, at least for now.

So far, MBTA has six centres across the country, at Mumbai, Cochin, Nagpur, Bangalore, Udaipur and the recent one at Gurgaon. MBTA has plans to set up more centres, in Pune Chennai and New Delhi, but no city in Bengal features on the radar.

When contacted by The Indian Express, Natekar said: “Bengal is not a viable option right now and we don’t have any plans for at least the next year or two. The reason for that is that there are no takers and so far, we have not received any concrete offers from anybody.”

When asked about the issue, Jaidip Mukerjea said that maybe Bengal didn’t need the MBTA given the current situation. “People like me, Akhtar Ali and Enrico Piperno already run academies. So, even if they set up a centre here, where will they get a qualified coach who is free to run their centre? Moreover, Mahesh is always there when I need him,” he said.

Apart from setting up academies in tennis, Globosport is also planning to set up infrastructure for other sports like badminton, squash, cricket and athletics.