Name: Abhishek Mukherjee

Age: 30

Claim to fame: To umpire at the US Open championship. Has officiated at Wimbledon and Australian Open

Early life: He grew up in Patna and started with table tennis. He was the state champion in the Under-12 category in 1989 and 1990. Tennis happened when he shifted to Calcutta after school.

Tennis: “I joined the Sreerampur Club,” he says. “In 1995 India played against Sweden at the Davis Cup. The tournament was held at South Club and I was a ball boy. Two umpires from Australia and England got me interested.”

Why umpiring? To be a good player, says the B.Com graduate, he would have had to concentrate more on the game.

“In 1996 I was invited to umpire the All India Grass Court National Tennis Championship at the South Club. I haven’t looked back since,” he says.

In 1997 he cleared the ITF Level I examination for tennis officials from Chennai. Two years later he cleared the ITF Level II exam in Mumbai.

Big break: He officiated in international matches in Sri Lanka, Hong Kong and Bangkok from 2000.

“But my real big break came in 2005 when I was asked to umpire the qualifiers at Wimbledon. In 2006 I was again asked to be there for the qualifiers. In 2007 I was asked to be there for the qualifiers, but the chief referee later asked me if I would like to be there for the main tournament. I umpired matches played by the Williams sisters and Leander Paes. This year I umpired the quarter-finals,” says Mukherjee.

He has also umpired Australian Open till the quarterfinals, including matches played by Maria Sharapova, Sania Mirza and Mahesh Bhupathi. And now he has been asked to be an umpire at US Open. He has been a line umpire at the Grand Slams and a chair umpire at the Australian Open junior. He umpired a match between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal in Dubai. He is going to the Beijing Olympic next month. “My dream is to umpire all the Grand Slams. I haven’t been to the French Open yet,” says Mukherjee.

Job requirements: “You need to concentrate, keep yourself updated with all the rules and be disciplined.” And you need confidence. “There are a maximum of 10 line umpires. They can still manage to make a mistake. But the chair umpire has to be right and he has to be confident that he is right.”