AITA approves pairing Rohan Bopanna and Divij Sharan pairing for Asian Games
The AITA has given the pairing of top two Indian doubles players, Rohan Bopanna and Divij Sharan, the green signal to represent India in the doubles event at the Asian Games. Men's Squad Captain Zeeshan Ali chose both the players as one team, while keeping Leander Paes and Sumit Nagal in the other.
The AITA has agreed to pair Rohan Bopanna and Divij Sharan as one of the men's doubles team representing India at the Asian Games. With Leander Paes missing out the tour for the last few months, there have been assumptions that he might be lacking his usual awareness of the game.
Leander Paes played his last match in China for the Davis Cup. Since then, he has missed the French Open and will be missing Wimbledon as well. This has raised concerns in the AITA that he may lack some match practice ahead of the game.
“Leander has not played since February, so there are concerns how sharp he will be. Based on the rankings, Rohan and Divij are the top two players, so they have been chosen as a team,” Zeeshan Ali, captain of the men's squad told PTI.
The IOA had demanded the team combinations from the All India Tennis Association by June 30. Hence, an Executive Committee meeting was called yesterday, where the captain of both men's and women's squad were consulted to finalize the combinations.
Men's squad captain selected Rohan Bopanna and Divij Sharan as one doubles team, with Leander Paes and Sumit Nagal being in the other one. In the mixed doubles, Leander Paes and Ankita Raina are in one team, while Rohan Bopanna and Prarthana Thombare are in the other one. For men's singles, Ramkumar Ramanathan and Prajnesh Gunneswaran have been selected.
However, the combinations can be changed before the draw as mentioned by captain Zeeshan and AITA Secretary General, Hironmoy Chatterjee. Chatterjee has also revealed that neither Rohan nor Divij has objected to playing with Leander Paes in writing to AITA.
“Actually, the ministry wanted that the players who are going to play together as a team at the Asian Games, should try to play one or two tournaments together before leaving for Indonesia, so the players must have discussed amongst themselves and spoken to the Captain verbally about this. But no one has given anything in writing to AITA,” Chatterjee said.0
“We had to send names to IOA, so we have selected the teams. These are provisional teams but captain can make changes before the draw. The captains have to submit names only at the Captains’ meeting,” he further added.
