Indian tennis players, who were involved in the ugliest of spat in Indian sports history only a week ago, are taking a U-turn with their statements and have all of a sudden turned mild. Three players involved in the controversy, including Mahesh Bhupathi, Rohan Bopanna and Leander Paes, are playing in London at Wimbledon and their comments suggest that there was nothing wrong that happened in Indian tennis.

Players who called each other ‘backstabber’ not so long ago have been seen praising each other in front of the media now. Maybe it is the affect that foreign media has had on them and may be it is something else. But all of a sudden they seem to have a change of heart.

It all started with Sania Mirza’s letter in which she thrashed not only All India Tennis Federation of India (AITA), but also Leander Paes and her French Open winning partner Mahesh Bhupathi. She was particularly furious with the way AITA treated her. She was also furious with the comments made by Paes’s father in which Dr Vece Paes said that Sania should give in writing that she will play with his son in the mixed doubles category.

She had some strong words for Bhupathi as well. “He has firmly stood by his commitment to play together with his men's doubles partner, Rohan Bopanna as he genuinely believed it was good for India. However, in the process, he sacrificed the commitment he made to me to try and win an Olympic medal together for India. Each person has his or her own priorities and I would like to believe that Mahesh made his choice in the best interests of the country.”

After her letter, reactions of AITA and the players seems to have changed a lot. Mahesh Bhupathi’s recent comment that Leander Paes is the number one player in India Paes deserves to go to Olympics with someone who wants to play with him. Bhupathi also spoke said that he is committed towards Sania and want to team up with her if given the chance. Some of the comments he made looked a bit strange because it was looking as if he was trying to do damage control in front of the foreign media.

It is not only Bhupathi who is doing that. Leander Paes has also said in a post-match press conference that he is interested in playing sport and not politics. There were reports that Paes will refuse to team up with the youngster Vishnu Vardhan, but now Paes doesn’t seem to have any problem with him.

Paes said that Vishnu is a really good player and he is very happy to play with him whatever the obstacles are. Paes said that as an experienced professional athlete, he will try to help him as much as he can because the kid has never played in any Grand Slams.

But the question that comes to mind is shouldn’t the players have behaved like this from the first day? If they had any problem with AITA’s team selection, couldn’t that have been sorted out in private? The way they acted in public and exposed India’s problems to the rest of the world could have been avoided.

Players who earlier blackmailed of boycotting the Olympics now just can’t wait to ‘play for their country’. It looks that our administration have finally made all the players happy and that is why their behaviour has changed. But the damage has already been done and we will be lucky to even come close to an Olympic medal, let alone winning it.

By Gaurav Jha
Indian Sports News Network