Wihat do Maria Sharapova, Anna Kournikova, Andre Agasse, Monica Seles, Jim Courier and Pete Sampras have in common, apart from the game of tennis? All of them graduated from the Nick Bolletieri Academy at IMG Academies in Bradenton, Florida. Kournikova, for instance, was just 10 when she enrolled at the IMG-owned Bollettieri Tennis Academy. And it is not just tennis. The International Management Group, (or IMG) Academies have, since 1978, trained and "finished" some of the best-known sports champions of the world at its 200-acre sports academy.

Now, it wants to recreate a similar sports nursery in-no, not the Middle East or the Far East that it initially checked out, but-Hyderabad. Last month, IMG unveiled its master plan to build its first such venture outside the US to churn out Wimbledon champs and Olympic medallists from Hyderabad's Gachibowli enclave. The venture, billed IMG Academies Bharata, will be spread over 400 acres near the Indian School of Business at Gachibowli, in the first phase will cost at least Rs 500 crore to build, and will boast of world-class sports-training facilities (See Plenty of Play). The project also has a second phase, spread over 450 acres near the proposed international airport at Shamshabad and will cost an additional Rs 200 crore at least. Unlike the first phase that will provide specialised sports training, the second phase would be aimed at providing sports, entertainment and leisure to the masses. When fully built-that'll be sometime in September 2006 for phase I and mid-2007 for phase II-the complex will even have retail and commercial space, two airport hotels and an additional golf course, besides the state-owned stadium complex. Says Ahobala "Billy" Rao, an IIT and Columbia University alumnus, and IMG's point man for the India project: "It will be a first-of-its-kind sports facility in India."

Uncertain future: IMGB's office at Jubilee Hills, Hyderabad

But why did IMG pick Hyderabad when it had the whole wide world to choose from? "It is one Indian city that has risen quite rapidly from being a quiet city to a leading technology one with its IT and pharma companies," says Andrew Krieger, a 48-year-old US businessman and the man behind the project. It also helped that Krieger is an Indophile. A long-time student of Sanskrit (he reads the Upanishads in original) and South Asian culture, Florida-based Krieger has been to India 25 times, each time primarily to visit his spiritual guru, Mataji Indira Devi, in Pune. "We hope to see it as a destination that can produce many Sania Mirzas and world champions," says Krieger.

How do the IMG Academies work? It will enroll students between 10 and 18 years of age (300 of them to start with and 1,200 eventually) and prepare graduates (typically on scholarships) for college through sports and education. That apart, IMGB will develop and train a large network of coaches and trainers to work with children and young adults within India. The goal: turn athletes into potential champions. Says Rao: "The first semester will commence sometime in September 2006."

The change of administration in Hyderabad, however, may throw a spanner in the works. The Chandrababu Naidu government had agreed to offer land to IMGB at a concessional price of Rs 50,000 per acre. But the new government has decided to review all projects that were approved starting last year and where land allotted is in excess of five acre. A cabinet sub-committee is currently examining the deal. Will IMG agree to pay more for the land if need be? Krieger isn't willing to comment save to say that, "many countries offered us land for free knowing that a project such as this would invest hundreds of millions of dollars and obviously we need some incentives."

For the sake of hundreds of aspiring champs, let's hope that India's potential Olympic factory doesn't shutter even before it has had an opportunity to crank up one.