IMPORTANT TO TELL THE LEANDER-MAHESH STORY: LEANDER PAES & MAHESH BHUPATHI

Former Indian tennis players Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi recently joined NewsX for its special series NewsX India A-List. In an exclusive conversation, the two players spoke about a new series based on them titled ‘Break Point’, which will be premiering on Zee 5 on October 1. Speaking about what actually convinced him to narrate your story through this 7-part series, Mahesh said, “I think Leander and I collectively have been collectively and individually been approached to tell the story many times in the past. I think there is no doubt about what talent comes with working with Nitesh and Ashwini. Not many people know about their love and passion for Tennis, which came across in there first call with us. Marry that with our interest in doing it and their creative talent and we thought we together because we spoke offline about it. That was possibly the best way to be able to tell our story from an independent perspective as well.

Talking about their on and off court relationship and the scenes, which fans don’t actually get to see, Leander shared, “It is very important to tell the Leander-Mahesh story very raw, very real. I think that’s the reason we choose this platform because you could tell it in an episode format rather than a feature film format I also think that having these many episodes, you can tell different versions of the story and different parts of the story from both our perspectives. What i really love about what Ashwini and Nitesh bhai have done is that their magic lies in telling the nuances of human emotions and telling it very real. To me, Nitesh Tiwari is brilliant in the way he understand the human emotions and the combination of Ashwini and Nitesh together is brilliant in the way that they knew how to handle the different personalities of Mahesh and Leander.”

He added, “Mahesh and Leander are very different as people but that also makes us gel so well. That’s what completes us. That is the reason probably why we won Wimbledon and French Open. I think that telling this story for me is inspiring another generation to become champions in their own right. Not just in tennis, not just in sports but if two young brown mundes can go and be number one in the world in the field of Tennis, then i think young Indians can be champions in any woke of life, especially with the knowledge we have today using tech, you can develop champions anywhere.”

Sharing his opinion on the state of Indian tennis today, Mahesh expressed, “I think there is a lot of depth today, specifically in men’s tennis. We got about 5 -6 guys, who are hovering between 100-200 in the world. Obviously, all of us are waiting for a couple to make a breakthrough so that we can consistently see them play in Grand Slams. Unfortunately, the wave that Sania created in Women’s sport hasn’t really translated into that kind of depth in women’s games but it’s just a factor of being no system in the country to support their talent, which continues to be the achilles heel of developing champions in India.”