PUNE: Lakshya Sports has announced ‘Project Grand Slam’ in collaboration with Kolkata-based Amalgam Steel that has the stated aim of finding “quality players” from the group of girls among the emerging tennis players in India and developing quality players from among them to shine in future Grand Slam tournaments.
Conceptualized by Sundar Iyer, vice-president of Lakshya and joint secretary of the All India Tennis Association, and Sourav Mishra, joint managing director of Amalgam Steel, the project aims to identify talented tennis players from the grassroots and help them develop into world class players in the future.
The agreement between Amalgam Steel and Lakshya Sports has been made possible under the mission of Amalgam Steel’s Corporate Social Responsibility division to support the sports sector and empower athletes in various sports.
Vijay Pandey, HR department manager, Amalgam Steel said, “We believe that participation in sports is of utmost importance for the personality development of the youth and inculcating the qualities of discipline, teamwork and resilience. That is why we decided to collaborate with Lakshya Sports for Project Grand Slam. The aim of our project is to produce Junior Grand Slam winners and we are committed to provide all necessary support and facilities to the selected players to elevate India’s profile at the international level. We have decided to help talented players at a young age to achieve the best success in their careers.
The players will be given all possible assistance under ‘Project Grand Slam’ to achieve great success at the international level and the various components of which are: 1) Scholarship – Financial assistance for training and participation in various tournaments, 2) Travel and accommodation expenses for various major ITF tournaments, 3) Supreme Expenditure required for high quality training to achieve standards, 4) Benefit of coach presence and guidance during competition, 5) High quality state-of-the-art equipment and other facilities for optimal performance, 6) Training involving high technology with sports science for fitness and injury recovery. Ashish Desai, Honorary Secretary of Lakshya and Sourav Mishra of Amalgam Steel signed the MoU for the implementation of this project today.
Stating that Maya Rajeshwaran, Prisha Shinde, Kashvi Sunil, Aishwarya Jadhav, Rishita Reddy, Nainika Reddy, Yashika Shoukin, Sejal Bhutada and Akriti Sonkusare have been selected for the first phase of training, Iyer said that in the coming months, across the country, These players will participate in various competitions. We will send a traveling coach along with them. They will evaluate the performance of these girls and report back to us and then we will finalize the names for the first batch in April 2024.
