Ravi Ubha, Aug 5: India loves Bollywood, and its Olympic tennis team has inadvertently provided a sequel suitable for the country’s renowned film industry.
As at the London Games four years ago, personality clashes and animosity are threatening to overshadow Indian players’ reputation for strong doubles play.
Since the 2012 Games, Sania Mirza has risen to No. 1 in the women’s doubles rankings, and Leander Paes, who at 43 is headed to a record seventh Olympics, has collected five more Grand Slam titles in doubles or mixed doubles to raise his career total to 18.
But instead of celebrating Paes’ longevity and the team’s medal chances, Indian players have been rehashing public feuds.
“It doesn’t look good, but it happens in various other countries,” said Bharat Oza, the secretary-general of India’s national tennis governing body, the All India Tennis Association. Oza, however, was not immediately able to give examples.
Four years ago, the tennis association’s preference was for Mahesh Bhupathi to partner in London with Paes, recreating the so-called Indian Express team that won three Grand Slams and in 1999 became the first men’s pair in the Open era to reach all four Grand Slam finals in one season. But Bhupathi, whose doubles partner at the time was Rohan Bopanna, refused to play with Paes.
Bhupathi, who used stinging language like “we don’t speak and have no camaraderie” and said Paes “privately and publicly stabbed me in the back,” could not be convinced.
Disappointing show
Ultimately, Bhupathi and Bopanna formed one team, with Paes forced to play with the unheralded Vishnu Vardhan.
Paes, though, was chosen to play mixed doubles alongside Mirza, even though she had won two mixed doubles Grand Slam titles with Bhupathi, including one at the French Open just weeks earlier.
Mirza, feeling like a pawn, released a lengthy, no-holds-barred statement denouncing the decision.
“As an Indian woman belonging to the 21st century, what I find disillusioning is the humiliating manner in which I was put up as a bait to try and pacify one of the disgruntled stalwarts of Indian tennis,” she said.
None of India’s four doubles teams won more than one Olympic match on the grass of the All England Club.
Any thoughts of a seamless process this year fizzled when Bopanna told the Indian association that he wanted to play in Rio de Janeiro with Saketh Myneni, who has yet to appear in the top 100 in singles or doubles but has regularly played with Bopanna in the Davis Cup.
As a top-10 doubles player at the ranking cutoff for the Olympics in June, Bopanna earned an automatic spot in the Rio tournament and could line up with any country-
man he chose, but his governing body had to approve.
“I have much admiration for Leander Paes and his many achievements, but unfortunately we have not been able to put together a good combination despite our best efforts, and I do not believe our styles of play are either compatible or complementary,” Bopanna said in a statement.
“Considering that this is a team event where two individuals need to jell together
to do well, regardless of individual achievements, it is the team and the combination that matters.”
The Indian tennis association, to no one’s surprise, turned down Bopanna’s request, and he was named Paes’ partner. This time, though, there was no fight.
“The moment we declared this is what the combinations are, immediately, within five minutes, Rohan sent me an email saying that I agree to play because he knew if he refuses, then he knows we don’t send a team,” Oza said.
If Bopanna had prevented Paes from making a record-extending seventh appearance in the Olympic tennis event and deprived the country of men’s participants, he would have been cast as a villain by many in India.
“The best bet would be to field Leander and Rohan, so that’s why we told Rohan,
‘We appreciate what you say, but ultimately we have to think about the country and the medal prospect,’” Oza said. “Naturally Leander is an iconic figure in the Davis Cup and world tennis.”
Measured moves
Mirza avoided being placed in an awkward position again. A team of Bopanna and Mirza was the only one that had a rankings combination that guaranteed India a spot in the 16-team mixed doubles draw.
At Wimbledon, Mirza said she did not “have a take” on the latest turbulent chapter in Indian tennis. “I’m there to represent my country, and I’m looking forward to it,” she added.
Bopanna, in an email, said: “What’s done in the past, there is nothing to dwell on that. It’s time where you look into the future and move on.” Paes did not respond to questions emailed to him.
For Mirza, chemistry in doubles is pivotal. “I think it’s good if you get along on and off the court, but history has said people who don’t get along well on the court can still win,” she said. “It just depends person to person. For me, it’s important.”
Paes and Bopanna won together in a lower-tier Davis Cup series against South Korea in July. Paes would not normally have played in such an event, but he was urged to participate by the Indian tennis association, Oza said.
“Leander has said he would only play at the World Group level, not below that, but we told him that because the government, the public, population of India and people abroad are looking at what you people are doing, you at least better make an appearance saying that we can play good doubles, so that at least will satisfy some of the murmurs that are going around,” Oza said.
“We called him because it was an important tie, and it was before Rio, so at least you can have some exercise together, playing in match conditions.”
Bopanna said, “We had a few strong practice sessions prior to the start of the tie.”
Paes’s lone Olympic medal came not in doubles but in singles, in Atlanta in 1996, when he took home the bronze. If he and Bopanna stand side by side on the podium in Brazil, this Bollywood-style drama would come to a pleasing conclusion for Indian tennis fans.
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