Mahesh Shrinivas Bhupathi is an Indian professional tennis player. He was born on 7 June 1974 in Chennai, India. In 1997, he became the first Indian to win a Grand Slam tournament With his win at the Australian Open mixed doubles in 2006, he joined the elite group of eight tennis players who have achieved a career Grand Slam in mixed doubles. He is also the founder of International Premier Tennis League. In 1995, he received the Arjuna Award for his performance. Mahesh Bhupathi is known as one of the top doubles players in the 1990s and 2000s. In 1999, Bhupathi won three doubles titles with Leander Paes, including the French Open and Wimbledon. He and Paes became the first doubles team to reach the finals of all four Grand Slams, the first time such a feat has been achieved in the open era and the first time since 1952. On 26 April of that year, they became the world no. 1 doubles team. Bhupathi also won the US Open mixed doubles with Ai Sugiyama of Japan. 

Bhupathi was even more successful in his mixed doubles Grand Slam career. He won five mixed doubles Grand Slam titles between 1999 and 2006 with five different partners, among them France’s Mary Pierce, Slovakia’s Daniela Hantuchova, and Switzerland’s Martina Hingis. In so doing, he won championships in the three other Grand Slam tournaments (in addition to his French Open title in 1997), giving him a career mixed doubles Grand Slam. He added to his tally with Australian Open (2009) and French Open (2012) mixed doubles championships while partnered with India’s Sania Mirza.