Making of a Tennis Star – Sania Mirza
– A mock case study
-By applying the principles outlined
in Outliers (The story of success) and Tipping Point (How Little Things Can
Make a Big Difference) by Malcolm Gladwell
It was the year 2005, when the
Indian Tennis sensation Ms. Sania Mirza took the tennis world by storm by
matching Ms. Serena Williams, stroke for stroke, in the 3rd round of
Australian Open. She couldn’t get past her but her feat didn’t go unnoticed by
Tennis aficionados. Especially, Mr. Bala.T.Kar (His father was a big fan of Mr.
Sachin Tendulkar, so he took the last three letters of his idol’s surname for
his son’s surname. “T” was the middle name.), who started researching social
fads, epidemics, sports successes after reading two books; “Outliers (The story
of success)” and “Tipping Point (How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference)”
by Malcolm Gladwell.
For his academic research, he
actively collaborates with his cousin Mr. Macho Dey (His aunt married a Bengali
and as a baby he had so much hair; everyone who visited the mother and son in
hospital started saying how “macho and manly” the baby looked, his uncle had no
choice but to name the baby Macho!).
Intrigued by the sudden success of
Ms. Sania Mirza, Mr. Bala.T.Kar started to dig deep in to the Tennis scene in
India. He had many discussions with the top brass of Tennis India Federation,
Sports journalists, Tennis coaches and players who are in the similar age group
of Sania. What he found was, during the period of 1995-2000, there were small
improvements in the general maintenance of tennis courts, the price of rubber
fell as much as 50% resulting in cheaper and affordable tennis balls, the entry
of direct-to-home satellite TV brought many channels dedicated exclusively to
sports that have contributed to the increased popularity of Tennis. All these
factors contributed to the emergence of world-class tennis players from India
from 2003 onwards.
It seemed like a good explanation
but Mr. Bala.T.Kar was not convinced in the above theory (I shall call this
“improved facilities resulting in improved results” theory for future
reference). One day, his cousin Mr. Macho Dey took him to a little known Tennis
Academy called 0-0 (LOVE ALL) which is managed by two Anglo Indians, Mr. and
Master Bates (father and son duo). You will not be (double) faulted for
thinking that their names are odd; for Mr. and Master Bates are a conservative
lot and insisted on everyone using their last names. They were very meticulous
about keeping the records of every student that enrolled in their Love All
Tennis Academy and most importantly they also kept demographic information
about their students.
By going through the demographic
data Mr. Bala.T.Kar and Mr. Macho Dey made a startling discovery. Over 80% of
the top students (players who achieved sub 200 ranking at least once in their
tennis career) came from a poor or lower middle class neighborhoods of the
city. This flies in the face of “improved facilities resulting in improved
results” theory because we should have had an even distribution of top players
among all the economic strata as everyone had “equal” access to these
improvements. There is definitely something else at work…
Being a tropical country, India is
blessed with a good monsoon season followed by a hot summer. This weather is
most suited for one particular insect, the ubiquitous mosquito. There are many
species and sub-species of mosquitoes but the most famous one being the
Anopheles mosquito
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| Anopheles mosquito |
that causes “Malaria”. In the early 90s, there was another
strain of mosquito (Aedes)
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| Aedes mosquito |
that was sweeping thru the Asiatic regions, causing
thousands of deaths, by spreading diseases called Chikungunya and Dengue fever.
It is a common practice to have regular fumigation and other mosquito control
measures in affluent areas of the city while the low-income areas (which are
also located closer to water bodies or garbage disposal areas that are breeding
grounds for mosquitoes) are often neglected. So, it is the poor neighborhoods
that see a lot of mosquito infestation and they need to fend for themselves
against these deadly mosquitoes.
At the same time (In the early 90s),
China became the industrial hub for the world. Under the Communist regime,
China built up huge industrial cities that house millions of factory workers
that help produce various house-hold items like toys, remote controls, various
electronic items in such huge volumes, it is almost impossible for any nation
to manufacture the same goods at cheaper prices than China. All nations must
import these items from China.
One such product to come out of
China to combat the mosquito menace was a “mosquito bat”.
It was priced right
and even the low-income families of India could afford it. This bat resembles a
tennis racquet and weighs also the same. It has a rechargeable battery (that
can be recharged by plugging the bat into the mains directly). The net of
mosquito bat consists of layers of closely knit wire mesh through which a
mosquito cannot pass through without touching the metal. A switch in the handle
of the mosquito bat, when pressed, arms the wire mesh with 12V of electricity
that is enough to kill and even burn a mosquito completely. It was the cheap
and affordable weapon of choice against the mosquito scourge in poor
neighborhoods of the city. How do you attract mosquitoes in your house to touch
the electrically charged wire mesh and die? The answer is simple, you don’t!
You will have to go hunting them with it and the process is explained below.
As the dusk approached, the time when
most mosquitoes go searching for their blood (food), all the doors and windows
of the house must be closed. You start from one corner of the living room,
swinging this mosquito bat like a tennis racquet, moving from corner to corner,
to and fro, to and fro, from one room to another until all or most of the
mosquitoes in the house are dead. You will need to do this under the beds and
in the bathroom also. If you have a two bed room house; it would take
approximately a good one hour of forehand/backhand with the mosquito bat to rid
the house of mosquitoes. One has to repeat this routine for at least 4-5 times
for one night, an activity which tends to get delegated to the kids!
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| A typical tennis forehand illustration |
If some of these kids take up Tennis
when they are 10 or 11 years old, they would have a big head-start over rich
kids in swinging the bat (assuming the poor kids started hunting mosquitoes at
the age of 7, for 4 hours a day, by the time they reach the age of 10, they
will have 5000 hours of “swinging” practice already under their belt!)
and they
will get noticed by their coaches quickly as better players compared to their
rich peers. As Malcolm Gladwell points out in his Outliers, you will have the
classic case of selection, streaming and differentiated experience that ensures
that these kids stay ahead of all other kids of their age group! This would
explain how the 80% of sub-200 ranked tennis players in LOVE ALL academy came
from a poor or lower middle class neighborhoods of the city.
Excited by this discovery, Mr. Bala.T.Kar and Mr. Macho Dey checked the
demographic information of ALL the top-ranked Indian Tennis players from 2005
onwards. Needless to say, majority of them were from poor neighborhoods AND
they all swung mosquito bats for hours every day when they were kids! So, when
examined closer, it was not just pure talent and improved tennis facilities
that gave rise to world-class tennis players from India, It was their economic
background and that little help from China in manufacturing the cheap and
affordable mosquito bat in the 90’s were the necessary and sufficient
ingredients for the success story of Indian Tennis from the year 2005….
p.s. – Soon after the publication of
above, Mr. Bose D.K (cousin of Mr. Macho Dey) discovered that the recent
success of Indian Badminton players (like Ms. Saina Nehwal and Mr. Parupally
Kashyap) can also be attributed to the mosquito bat!
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| P Kashyap |
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| Saina Nehwal |
He is also funding the
research to make mosquito bats in the shapes of a cricket bat, hockey stick,
and base ball bats to help India win a few Olympic Gold medals in future!
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| Cricket bat |
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| Hockey stick |
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| Baseball bat |
