2023 USTA Eastern Family of the Year: The Gupta Family

The Gupta Family, of Parsippany, N.J.—Anish and Vayu, and their twin sons, Yash and Veer—have been named USTA Eastern’s 2023 Family of the Year for an unwavering commitment to service in their community through tennis.

It all started with some broken strings. In middle school, Yash and Veer began to get more serious about playing tennis—but the more intensely they trained, the more frequently the family would need to spend money repairing their racquets. Hoping to save some cash, the brothers looked into restringing and regripping the equipment themselves. They watched training videos on YouTube to learn about string power and tension, while Anish decided to invest in a racquet restringing machine to support his sons’ endeavor. Before long, the twins were not only patching up their own sticks, but also those of their friends and teammates. 

As the brothers became more confident in their abilities, Vayu had a thought. If refurbishing a racquet was such an expense for her family—so much so that they all went about figuring out how to do it on their own—it must be quite an expense for other families as well. Could Yash and Veer use their burgeoning operation to help those in their community?

The twins contacted their coach, Bob Bynum, who also serves as the director of the Greater Newark Tennis & Education (GNTE) organization. The non-profit—which provides tennis instruction to children free of charge in the greater Newark area—often receives racquet donations, though the equipment they receive frequently show signs of wear and tear. Yash and Veer offered to help, and in their freshman year of high school, the brothers ended up restringing and regripping an astounding 200 racquets on behalf of GNTE in just two months' time. (Refurbishing each racquet, Yash estimates, takes about 30-45 minutes.)

“In doing all this, I feel that Yash and Veer are becoming more responsible, not only toward themselves, but also to their community,” Vayu says. “And hats off to them both, because the idea may have come from me, but they are both very motivated. They want to do more.”

Yash also notes that the makeshift business has made his family even closer.

“All four of us work on this,” he says. “We have a shop in our basement, and we spend time stringing and thinking of places where we can expand. We drive to the clubs and collect racquets. It’s just a great experience.”

In addition to their highly respectable record of service, Yash and Veer are accomplished tennis players in their own right. For nearly three years, the twins have played No. 1 (Veer) and No. 2 (Yash) singles for the Rockaway N.J.-based Morris Hills High School varsity tennis team.

The sport, it turns out, is very much a family activity. It’s another way for them all to spend time together. Anish first picked up the game growing up in India.

Of course, Anish never really did stop. Upon moving to the United States, he continued to compete recreationally. Yash and Veer would often accompany Anish to matches and serve as ball boys, which eventually led to the pair joining their middle school tennis team. Quickly, the brothers found a lot to love about the game.

“We just kept growing more passionate about it,” Veer says. “We wanted to be more competitive. So we started playing more tournaments and getting better and better. We tried out for our high school team, and we ended up both making varsity our freshmen year.”

Both Yash and Veer consider this one of their biggest highlights in the sport to date, with Yash noting that making the team at their school as a freshman is particularly challenging. Veer, however, does call out one other moment that he considers his best in the game.