Mahesh Bhupathi surprised at Leander Paes’ exclusion for David Cup tie in Kolkata

Italy, on paper, is much stronger than the hosts in every department, having players like Marco Cecchinato, Andreas Seppi and Matteo Berrettini and Simone Bolleli. On the other hand, India had left with a less experienced team due to the absence of Leander Paes and their only hopes lies on Rohan Bopanna and Divij Sharan. That irked the non-playing captain of the team, Mahesh Bhupathi, who argued that Paes should have been there in the team.

“Honestly, if I were consulted in selection, I’d have said Leander definitely has to be in the mix when it’s a grass-court tie in Kolkata, but I’m never consulted. He has the passion when it comes to Davis Cup… nobody has witnessed how he raises his level as closely as I have… if anyone argues Leander’s ability in Davis Cup, he’s never going to win against me. He still has the ability. If I knew what goes on behind the scenes, it would have been a totally different story,” Bhupathi told ToI.

“Firstly, the AITA needs to find a way to involve whoever is the captain in the selection process. You can’t have the selectors sitting behind closed doors and then handing over a set of players to the captain and saying ‘go win’ on a particular surface where they don’t even know whether half the players are left-handed or right-handed. This process has to be changed because everybody is trying to win the tie… things have to evolve if we are to take the next step.”

While rumours have that Rohan Bopanna never wanted to partner Paes, the former Indian player rubbished the idea and stated that the duo played the China tie and never had any sort of problem between them.

“It’s a misconception fuelled by ‘sources’ who don’t have the guts to speak out. Rohan is open to playing with anyone he has to play with. They played against China and won. If he didn’t want to play with him, he wouldn’t have played the China tie,” Bhupathi said.

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