Leander Paes extremely disappointed after AITA’s decision – Tennis News
India’s top doubles player, Leander Paes, has been utterly disheartened by the All India Tennis Association’s decision of pairing him with low ranked Vishnu Vardhan for the London Olympics.
Paes shared that he was at a loss of words. The Indian legend also stated that he could not believe that the selection committee gave up to the dirty politics.
Ranked seventh in the world, Paes is the best Indian player on the ATP World Tour but he will have to play with the world number 209 in the doubles event of the London Olympics.
AITA bowed down to the pressure of Mahesh Bhupathi and Rohan Bopanna, who had threatened the federation that they would not participate in the biggest sports event of the world if they were not send as one team.
At the first place, selection committee had announced that Paes and Bhupathi would represent India, as the only doubles team in the tennis event. However, Bhupathi straightaway refused to partner Paes, saying that he wanted to
play with Bopanna. The federation then asked Bopanna to play with Paes but he responded with same answer.
One day latter, the selection committee met again and announced that they would send two teams for the event, according to which Bhupathi will play with Bopanna and Paes will have to join forces with Vardhan.
Paes added, "My ranking makes me the country's highest ranked tennis player and afforded me the right to chose my partner, but due to two people [Bhupathi and Bopanna who refused to partner him claiming they came together at the
start of the season with a view to playing the Olympics] holding the country to ransom, my Olympic dream is in jeopardy."
The Indian star added, "The sad part of this whole episode is that people who should have ideally been penalised by the federation are, in fact, being promoted by that very federation. Today, I don’t feel like the son of the soil
anymore."
Paes had also announced before this decision that he would not participate at the Games if he was partnered with a junior player. At the time of announcing its latest decision, AITA accepted that its decision was unfair for Paes
and it also requested the veteran to review his decision of boycotting Olympics.
In order to compensate Paes, AITA announced that Bhupathi’s regular mixed doubles partner, Sania Mirza, will play with the former at the mega event.
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