Life Outside the Office | Abishek Laxminarayan

Tennis is a tough game. You lose often. It teaches you to take losses in your stride, but also never to give up.”

Abishek Laxminaryan’s relationship with tennis began innocuously enough. He started playing when he was just five, because he wanted to be cool, like his elder brother. But, the backhands and aces scored a match point for life. Laxminarayan, founder and co-CEO of venture capital firm Indavest, coached under C.G. Krishna Bhupathi, tennis ace Mahesh Bhupathi’s father. His regular playmate growing up was Rohan Bopanna, one of India’s top rankers today. Ranked in the Top 300 in the world in the juniors, Laxminarayan was good enough to turn pro, but academics eventually won out in his choice of career. Tennis helped here, too. “I got into Cornell University because of the credits I earned playing.” He also met his business partner, Greg Artz, on-court at Cornell. Their partnership scores equally well off the court too. Laxminarayan makes sure he swings in 10 hours of play every month, and his favourite opponent is former coach Bhupathi Senior.

Professionally Speaking

Expert coaching can cost from anything 30,000 to a lakh

Favourite Players

 Roger Federer and Rohan Bopanna

His Match Points

Participated in multiple tournaments in Japan, Philippines, Brunei, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka as a junior player. More recently, reached the semi-finals of the Father and Son Championship at Indiranagar Club in Bengaluru with his father.