CLEVELAND, Ohio – The implement in Zubin Hathi’s hand when he was born wasn’t a drumstick or mallet. It was a tennis racket.

The son of a tennis pro and tennis shop owner — and a skilled tennis player himself — Hathi spent many years growing up in Roanoke, Va. imagining he was headed for the courts, not the world’s great concert halls.

The latter, though, is where he ended up, and where he appears destined to stay. The new principal timpanist of the Cleveland Orchestra, Hathi has completed the transformation, swapping a potential future on grass or clay for a life at Severance Music Center.

“I never envisioned myself making music my career,” Hathi said in the apartment at One University Circle, where he’s lived since his appointment in May. “But I’m a singularly focused person. Once I p

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