Mahesh Bhupathi on Monday said the men’s doubles team paid the price for lack of practice at the Rio Olympics, slamming the pair for the first-round exit. According to a report in Hindustan Times, when asked if his former partner Leander Paes and Rohan Bopanna were under-prepared for the Games, Bhupathi said: “Underprepared? There were no preparations at all.”
“They didn’t play matches together. Even when Leander and I were not playing together on tour in 2004 and 2008, we always came together and played a few tournaments and that’s what Olympics demands. This year they went in cold… One match against a dilapidated Korean Davis Cup team is not the way to prepare for the Olympics. Our best shot was in the mixed doubles but were unfortunate,” he said.
According to a report in The Economic Times, India's tennis performance at the Rio Olympics was a letdown. “Particularly galling was the egg Leander Paes and Rohan Bopanna laid in the men's doubles first round. Paes also annoyed fans with his cavalier approach to the campaign. Despite weeks of self-congratulation about his seventh Olympics and cheesy proclamations about patriotism, Paes arrived in Rio barely a day before the match and without much practice with Bopanna.”
According to the report Mahesh Bhupathi had no sympathy for his ex-partner's actions. "You cannot go to the Olympic Games without preparation," the former doubles world no 1 told ETPanache in Mumbai on Monday. "I don't care who you are. I don't care how much money you are making ( Paes reached Rio late on account of a club tennis engagement in t he US). It is inexcusable that Leander reached Thursday night, expecting a miracle on Saturday. It's unfathomable. The Olympics schedule is out two years in advance. You keep singing the song that this (the Olympics) is your thing (and then show up at the last minute).”
