Ten things about Murray's new agent, Mahesh Bhupathi
Ten things from Wimbledon.com about Mahesh Bhupathi, a former men's doubles and mixed doubles Wimbledon champion, who has been hired to enhance Andy Murray's portfolio of endorsements and off-court deals. Bhupathi's Globosport and Simon Fuller's XIX Entertainment have announced a new venture called XIX Globosport.
- Bhupathi is married to Lara Dutta, a Bollywood actress and a former Miss Universe. Bhupathi and Dutta, who married in 2011, have a daughter.
- He co-produced a Bollywood film 'Chalo Dilli' which starred his wife.
- Bhupathi, who will retire at the end of this season, has won a title on the ATP World Tour every year since 1997. He has won one tournament so far this season, after he combined with France's Michael Llodra at the hard-court championships in Dubai.
- Three of his 12 Grand Slam titles (men's doubles and mixed doubles) have come at the All England Club. He won the men's doubles title in 1999 (with Leander Paes) and has twice been the mixed doubles champion, in 2002 (with Elena Likhovtseva) and in 2005 (with Mary Pierce).
- He is just an Australian Open title short of a career Grand Slam in men's doubles. He has, however, won all four Grand Slam mixed doubles titles.
- Murray isn't the first tennis player that Bhupathi has represented. He has also worked with Sania Mirza and Somdev Devvarman.
- He and his former doubles partner Leander Paes have the Padma Shri, which is said to be the Indian equivalent of the American Medal of Honour or the British knighthood.
- As the Indian once put it, he's "never far" from his Blackberry. "But at home I have a great team working for me and they are well versed in what needs to be done. My role is relationship building at the highest level. I probably spend a couple of hours a day online replying to emails. When I'm home the business takes over. I don't get time to hit. But luckily when I leave for a tournament it only takes two to three days of practice and I'm ready. For now tennis is my first priority. Globosport is going to be my life after tennis."
- He will be trying to sell Murray to an Indian market. "India is a growing entertainment market. We have 600 million of our population who are under the age of 30. They want to be entertained and are willing to pay for good entertainment. The potential is vast," Bhupathi told The Independent. "Tennis is a very big sport in India. Andy is big. But I'm working with Andy commercially on a global basis now. It's not like I'm just focused on the Indian market."
- He wants to launch a tennis league across Asia, but it is more likely to happen next year rather than at the end of this season. "Doing the league is just a mammoth amount of work and I'm still playing active tennis. I finish playing at the end of the year, so maybe I'll be able to dedicate more time to it then. Before I can talk to the players we have to see which cities are involved, what the dates are. In Asia we have multiple cities with multiple time zones with multiple weather issues. So there's too much to figure out before we can get there."
