Tennis wasn't love at first sight: Teen star Maaya's journey to Mallorca

MAAYA Rajeshwaran Revathi was preordained to grow up around tennis. Her dad, Rajeshwaran, spent a lot of his free-time watching Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi on TV. Soon after she was born in Pollachi, less than an hour's drive from Coimbatore, her dad used to take her to watch local level tennis matches.

- SWAROOP SWAMINATHAN @ Chennai

Her tennis-obsessive father wanted Maaya to take up any sport, preferably an individual sport, as a hobby. Tennis was a natural choice although the presence of three tennis courts next to their house in Coimbatore helped. "Tennis was not love at first sight for me," Maaya tells this daily. "I gradually started to fall in love with the sport (after playing it for the first time when I was eight). I decided to pursue it when I was 10."