Maaya Rajeshwaran with Sunder Iyer of Lakshya Sports and Vijay Pandey of Amalgam Steel at the launch of Project Grand Slam in Pune.
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
Lakshya Sports in collaboration with Amalgam Steel has launched Project Grand Slam to nurture girls in tennis from the grassroots level to Grand Slam stage.
The brainchild of Lakshya Vice President, Sunder Iyer, and Sourav Mishra, the Joint Managing Director of Amalgam Steel, the project aims to support the chosen players in every possible way to help them evolve into world class stars.
“Though this program, we want to see at least four to five girls play at all the junior Grand Slams regularly, and start a new chapter for Indian tennis. This will also help the girls make an entry via the junior wild cards into the professional events”, said Sunder Iyer.
“We believe that sports is essential for holistic development, building character and instilling values such as team work, discipline and resilience. We want to have junior Grand Slam champions from India. Our objective is to give selected players with essential resources and assistance”, said Vijay Pandey, president of HR at Amalgam Steel.
After rigorous assessment, the project has already chosen players n the 14-15 age group, Maaya Rajeshwaran, Prisha Shinde, Kaashvi Sunil, Aishwarya Jadhav, Rishitha Basireddy, Nainika Reddy, Yashika Shokeen, Sejal Bhutada and Akruti Sonkusare.
These players will be further assessed through a series of ITF junior events in India, before further pruning by April. Coaches will be travelling for these events to support and evaluate the players. The project will have renowned coach Hemant Bendrey as the guide. Coaches S Narendranath, Shivika Burman and Namita Bal will travel for the tournaments, along with physios and strength conditioning experts,
The project will provide scholarship for training and competition, assist in travel and stay for tournaments, help players avail world class training facilities, get coach assistance during tournaments, apart from equipment, gear and scientific support for appropriate training and better recovery.
The project hopes that the players would gather sufficient world ranking points from the tournaments in Pune, Chandigarh, Delhi, Kolkata and Indore so that the chosen players are able to compete in a higher event in Thailand.
“We intend to have the first foreign coaching camp in Thailand”, said Sunder.
The project will get apparel support from Indian Tree, which has already established a strong presence in the Indian tennis market.