The ‘Great Indian Tennis Drama’ has not only hogged the limelight in Indian media, even the international media seems to have taken note of it. So after their first round win over Uruguay's Marcel Felder and Tunisia's Malek Jaziri in Wimbledon, Mahesh Bhupathi and Rohan Bopanna were subjected to questions related to the controversies engulfing Indian tennis. According to a report in The Times Of India, when asked by an international journalist why 'no one wanted to partner Paes,' despite a great individual record, Bhupathi said, "Everyone seems to think that I'm the one manipulating and pulling the strings for all these extremely individual and successful tennis players like Sania (Mirza), Rohan and Somdev Devvarman. It's not true. People need to ask hard questions. Being the No.1 player in India, he (Paes) definitely deserves to go to the Olympics, but he deserves to go with someone who wants to play with him."
Meanwhile Bopanna too was happy to take the questions and said he and Bhupathi were very excited to represent India in the Olympics. "There's nothing bigger than representing your country in the Olympics. For me, it's my first time. Obviously grass being my favourite surface, coming back here after Wimbledon is great," he said.
Making his stand with regard to Olympic mixed doubles competition clear, Bhupathi said, "In Sania's press statement (on Tuesday) she has clearly stated that we have won two Grand Slam titles together, one of them as recently as two weeks ago. Now they have to decide what it is they want to do, win a medal for India or as Sania said, keep one player (Paes) happy," reports TOI.
Meanwhile The Hindu reports that the Indians couldn’t have begun better: the first set featured 17 minutes of solid serves, angled returns, from Bopanna in the deuce court and Bhupathi in the ad court, and sharp volley exchanges. Especially impressive was the co-ordination in movement.
Felder and Jaziri, who didn’t know what hit them, were able to push the seventh seeds to a breaker in the second set, even endangering Bopanna’s serve in the fifth game.
But Bhupathi and Bopanna recovered to get the job done. “We really worked hard these past six months to get where we are, very pleased, and we’re hoping to continue our good form here and doing well this week,” said Bopanna.
Understandably there were questions about the incidents surrounding the selection of India’s representatives to the Olympics. “You know things couldn’t have got uglier for us in Indian tennis the last week,” said Bhupathi. “Everyone seems to think that I’m the one manipulating and pulling the strings for all these extremely individual and successful tennis players like Rohan and Sania. It’s not true.”
