VK Parthasarathy Tennis TNTA VP

Former Tennis Player and VP of the TNTA VK Parthasarathy passed away on Monday aged 82. In the l950s, he trained under the great TK Ramanathan and was his favourite pupil. During his prime, when he also moved into the top 10 in India, he won the South India Hard Court Junior Singles title won the Stanley Cup on barefoot, Captained the Madras University and the State team.

In 1961, tennis legend R Krishnan picked him as his doubles partner for the tour of Pakistan and won all the matches on tour. Parthasarathy also reached the finals in the singles tournament losing predictably to Krishnan who swept all the titles on that tour. 

In 1989, he was handpicked by N Sankar (now Chairman of the Sanmar Group) to don the role of Honorary Secretary of the TNTA, the year when Sankar took over as the President. It was he who suggested to Sankar that there should be prize money for the City Club Tennis League. The Sanmar Group has been anchoring the league since then with sponsorship of the tournament. He was also involved in the process of laying the first synthetic court in South India at the Madras Club. He later became the Vice-President of TNTA when he also worked with N Kumar, now Vice Chairman of the Sanmar Group.

He began his corporate career at EID Parry and towards the fag end of his career worked with Sankar in the finance group at Sanmar. 

Chairman of the Sanmar Group the 75 year old N Sankar(Jolly Rovers Sankar@ 75), who also runs the famous Jolly Rovers cricket team, had known Pachu as a good close dear friend since 1958. He recounts those early years “Pachu and I went to TK Ramanathan’s courts together. He was Ramanathan’s favourite student. TKR would use him as a demonstration model. Pachu had the perfect tennis strokes. He was an absolute exponent of the net game and would always be at the net for the volley. His topspin backhand was a thing of beauty.” 

Sankar was just 14 when he watched Parthasarathy in action in the final of the Stanley Cup Final played at the Loyola College Tennis Court “The court was one of the best in the city. Pachu played the first two sets against Dr. S Srinivasan Ratnam with Bata Canvas shoes that had thin soles. It looked like he was playing on ice. He often slipped in the canvas shoes and lost the first two sets. Frustrated at this and in an angry gesture, he removed his shoes, played bare foot, won the next three sets and lifted the cup.”

The Vivekananda College Physical Director was so upset after the first two sets that he left the court in a hush, only to be called back a little later by Sankar and his friends when Parthasarthy was making a sensational comeback. Sankar recalls “The PD had to defend himself in front of the boys and said that he was confident of his ward coming back to win. And that was the reason for him leaving the court.”

By this time, R Krishnan was already making waves both in India and overseas. He was already seen as the all time great tennis player from India. Repeatedly Parthasarathy would lose to Krishnan. In 1961, when the team was to go to Pakistan to play in tournaments there, Krishnan picked Parthasarathy as his doubles partner. While Parthasarathy did make the finals of one of the tournaments, he was thrashed by Krishnan. In the doubles he had better fortune as he won all the matches on tour. Sankar recalls as to how Parthasarathy saw the funny side of things in those doubles matches “All he had to do was to serve properly and then watch Krishnan take over. When he was to receive the serve, he had to get the ball back into the opponent’s court and Krishnan would manage the rest. ‘Except for these two activities, his role was to watch all the matches almost from the sidelines – such was the domination of the legendary Krishnan.”

He began his corporate career at EID Parry and then later towards the end of his career, he worked with Sankar in the finance group at Sanmar.

When Sankar took over as the President of TNTA in 1989 (by this time he had already made a big impact in city cricket with Jolly Rovers, under the managership of Bharath Reddy - Chemplast Bharath Reddy-, winning the Palayampatti Shield thrice in succession in the 1980s), he roped in Parthasarathy as the Secretary “The two of us did a lot of reorganization over a period of 6-7 years. We brought in the Tennis league and he did a lot of the developmental work there in that phase in the 1990s.”

Sankar’s brother and Vice Chairman of the Sanmar Group N Kumar, whose daughter was a national champion in Swimming (Mayura Kumar), was instrumental as the President of the TNTA in the mid 1990s to bring the ATP tournament to Madras from Delhi. He too knew Parthasarathy for over half a century “Pachu was older than me and I used to look up to him, both at TK Ramanathan’s courts and when he played Regional and National tennis tournaments. He had lovely strokes. As a player, he belonged to the next rung of stars that were good but could not make the grade to greatness.”

"He was a true gentleman both on and off the tennis court.  When I went to the US in the 1960s, he was in Delhi and helped me."

Much later after he settled down, Pachu played regularly with Kumar at the club courts in the city spending the evenings together discussing the development of tennis in the city “As an administrator, Pachu always was perfect and would never do anything wrong and got along very well with people. He would go the extra mile for the game” says Kumar.

Sankar saw him as one of the finest human beings “He was warm hearted and never once lost his temper. He was a person I really liked.”