Mahesh Bhupathi and Rohan Bopanna will play together at the London Olympics – Tennis News
One of the biggest dramas of the Indian Tennis came to an end, as All India Tennis Association (AITA) announced that it will send two double teams at this year’s London Olympics.
The controversy started almost one week back, when AITA announced that Mahesh Bhupathi will partner Indian number one, Leander Paes, at the mega event. This meant that India would have been represented by only one team at the London
Olympics.
Bhupathi, who had once the best partnerships of the world with Paes, refused to make a team with the latter and said that he would only partner Rohan Bopanna at the biggest sports event of the world.
The third best Indian player according to the current rankings, Bhupathi, stated that he was playing with Bopanna from the beginning of the year and always informed AITA that they wanted to play together at the Olympics.
AITA then contacted Bopanna to pair up with Paes but he too replied with the same words. On the other hand, Paes also threatened that he would withdraw from the London Games if he was partnered with a junior player.
However, the controversy came to an end after the latest announcement by AITA. Bhupathi and Bopanna took a sigh of relief after the selection committee’s decision.
They issued a joint statement, which said, "We are excited that we will be playing together at the Olympics and our sole focus is now on our team's preparations for the Games."
Bhupathi and Bopanna added, "We are delighted to have been nominated as a team to the Men's Doubles event at the Games of the x*x Olympiad. The events of the last few days have been extremely challenging for all concerned, but we respect them as necessary steps
in this process.”
Paes will now have to play with the world number 207, Vishnu Vardhan, at the mega event. It will be a dream come true for Vishnu but Paes has been left to play with a player who has never participated at the top level.
On the other hand, Sania Mirza has been paired up with Paes for the mixed doubles event, as they can make a direct entry into the draw due to their ranking.
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