Each echo carries more than the rhythm of a game at his academy in Jalan Duta.
It carries a lifetime of grit, of sacrifice, of hope that the next child with a racquet finds the same lifeline he once did.
His story began far from privilege in Port Dickson, Negeri Sembilan.
His father, N Veerasingam, was a gardener at the home of an army general. His mother, Ellama, earned RM80 a month as a cleaner at the Port Dickson Yacht Club.
With that single month’s pay, Ellama bought her son his first tennis racquet, a Kawasaki.
Selvam was a ball boy there while helping his mother with her work.
He joined his neighbour R Ramachandran to chase stray balls for club members; the two boys would one day become Malaysia’s top doubles pair.
He took part in junior tournaments and, within a year, was national junior champion at 14.
That was also when he first walked into the national tennis centre at Jalan Duta, donning Malaysian colours in preparation for a junior event in Indonesia.
By 16, he was Malaysia’s youngest men’s No 1, and he clung to that spot through the 1990s.
The defining moment of his youth came in 1987 at the Port Dickson Open, then a major championship attracting foreign players.
His father had died a month earlier, and grief weighed heavily. Selvam almost didn’t play. But at 18, he found himself in the final against an American.
Ellama watched her son playing for the first and only time, sitting beside the Yang di-Pertuan Besar of Negeri Sembilan, Tuanku Ja’afar Tuanku Abdul Rahman.
She saw Selvam lose the first set, then storm back to win to the roar of a packed crowd. “I told myself I had to do it for my parents,” Selvam, now 56, recalls.
From there, the path was steep but relentless. He fought Davis Cup ties and battled the region’s best at the SEA Games.
In 1997, he earned a place in the Australian Open qualifiers — a marker that confirmed his place among the game’s elite — but withdrew to care for his ailing mother.
Comeback king
Selvam’s career was defined by resilience. He returned to the national team four times after “retirement,” answering the call whenever Malaysia needed him.
The most dramatic came at 40. Already running his academy, he was summoned by national coach S Selvarajoo on the eve of a Davis Cup tie against Kuwait.
“I trained for just an hour with the team and went out to play doubles. We won. I did it because it was for the country,” he says.
That loyalty showed earlier too. In 2000, he postponed his wedding when Malaysia called on him for a Davis Cup contest against Indonesia.
Lawn Tennis Association of Malaysia (LTAM) president Sallehuddin Mohamed urged him to put love on hold, with a Group One berth at stake. Selvam obeyed, though Malaysia lost.
Only later that year did he wed Rajani Kurumaloo. Their daughter Serena is their enduring joy.
In 2005, just before turning 36, he proved his dominance as a veteran, crushing No 2 seed Abdul Hazli Zainuddin 6-0, 6-0 to clinch his record 20th national singles title.
Few Malaysian athletes have shown such longevity and devotion.
Yesterday, that devotion was formally recognised. Selvam was honoured, along with several other sporting legends, by the Malaysia Olympians Association (MOA) for his outstanding career.
MOA president Noraseela Khalid said the honour recognised not only his record-breaking feats on court, but also how he transformed his success into opportunities for others.
Building Duta Tennis
When Selvam stepped off the professional circuit in 1999, he didn’t leave tennis behind. He built something new.
With the blessing of the national sports council, he founded the Duta Junior Tennis Academy, later renamed Duta International Tennis Academy (Duta Tennis).
He wanted it different. Tennis was often seen as a sport for the wealthy, but Selvam made it accessible.
Children who might never have dreamt of private coaching now had a court to call their own.
He also created work for retired athletes, offering them dignity as coaches. Forgotten names in Malaysian tennis found a second life at Duta Tennis.
Today, the academy still trains around 200 juniors of all ages. Many come from modest homes. Some earn scholarships to US universities, pursuing both tennis and education.
The philosophy of the form three dropout is: “sport and study, hand in hand”. It became the academy motto — Train to Win.
His reach spread beyond Malaysia, training juniors from Singapore, Sri Lanka, India, and the Maldives, with Sri Lanka even winning a South Asian Games medal under his guidance.
The impact was noticed globally. Twice in 2017 and 2018, he brought legendary American coach Nick Bollettieri, who produced 188 Grand Slam titles, to Malaysia.
Bollettieri, who shaped Andre Agassi, Monica Seles, Jim Courier, and Maria Sharapova, declared: “Selvam has to be an integral part of any plans to develop tennis in Malaysia.
“Duta Academy has a special relationship with its students. No other place I’ve visited has equalled that.”
He even called Selvam “my boy.”
“Bollettieri’s praise was priceless,” Selvam says. “It showed that what we were doing in Malaysia could stand on the world stage.”
Giving back, shaping dreams
The Duta Tennis courts remain the heart of Selvam’s mission. The academy employs seven coaches and doubles as home for some of them.
Selvam dreams of building a hostel so outstation players can train without the burden of travel.
But its tenure at Jalan Duta is now under review by the Malaysia Stadium Corporation. For Selvam, it is not alarm but a moment of hope.
“What began as a lifeline for me has become a lifeline for many others. I’d like it to stay that way,” he says.
For him, medals matter less than the measure of lives touched.
“Medals are milestones,” he says. “But legacy is in the players who take their values into life. Seeing them succeed is the true reward.”
Selvam could have taken his skills abroad, coached in the United States or even Sri Lanka, and built an easier life.
Instead, he stayed. He chose the harder rally: giving back, building pathways, shaping dreams.
Each day, he still comes to the courts, watching children learn grips, footwork, and discipline.
He pulls players aside to remind them that mindset matters more than raw power.
His journey has come full circle — from ball boy to national champion to cultivator of champions. And he is not done.
Selvam is still rallying. His legacy, like the bounce of a ball, is not about where it starts but about how high it can go.