Jakarta
\nMiffed at not getting a \u201cspecialist\u201d men\u2019s doubles partner, veteran tennis star Leander Paes on Thursday pulled out of the 18th Asian Games starting on Saturday.<\/p>\n
The 45-year-old Indian, winner of 18 Grand Slams, was asked to team up with struggling singles player Sumit Nagal after All India Tennis Association (AITA) agreed to pair country\u2019s top doubles players Rohan Bopanna and Divij Sharan in the men\u2019s doubles, on their request.<\/p>\n
Paes was already miffed at his exclusion from TOP Scheme but had made himself available for the Asian Games, where he has won eight medals, including five gold.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is with a heavy heart that I have to say that I will not be playing the upcoming Asian Games in Indonesia,\u201d Paes said in a statement sent to PTI.<\/p>\n
\u201cDespite my repeated requests, from so many weeks in advance, it is sad that we have not been able to put a doubles specialist in the team for a credible second doubles pairing for the Asian Games.\u201d<\/p>\n
With Sharan and Bopanna deciding to play together, captain Zeeshan Ali had no choice but to pair Paes with Nagal or Ramkumar Ramanathan.<\/p>\n
While Ramkumar is primarily a singles player and plays doubles occasionally, Nagal is in terrible form. He has lost nine straight first round matches on the Pro circuit, coming into the Asian Games.<\/p>\n
\u201cRamkumar Ramanathan is a very good player, and I would love to play doubles with him. But considering that he has a golden chance to win the singles medal, it is not fair to distract him from his best event,\u201d Paes said further in the statement.<\/p>\n
Paes was to return to the Games after missing the previous two editions.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur doubles specialists like Sriram Balaji, Vishnu Vardhan, Purav Raja and Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan have been doing exceptionally well this season and one of them definitely deserved to strengthen the Asian Games squad,\u201d Paes said.<\/p>\n
India as of now have five players in top-100 Bopanna (32), Sharan (38), Paes (79), Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan (88) and Purav Raja (90).<\/p>\n
The next best two players N Sriram Balaji (112) and Vishnu Vardhan (115) were also in top-100 some weeks back.<\/p>\n
Paes, however, asserted that his absence would not adversely affect India\u2019s chances.<\/p>\n
\u201cRather than affecting the team\u2019s chances, I believe that my absence would only help the rest to play more events, be it doubles or mixed doubles,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have been in constant touch with captain Zeeshan Ali and have had long discussions with him with regard to Rohan Bopanna\u2019s injury.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am happy to learn that Rohan has recovered and as such a doubles medal for India is almost assured. Without his availability it wouldn\u2019t have been fair for me to withdraw as that may have impacted a possible gold from tennis.\u201d<\/p>\n
Recently, Paes had asked AITA for an explanation as to why he was not chosen for TOP Scheme, but did not get a positive response.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Jakarta Miffed at not getting a \u201cspecialist\u201d men\u2019s doubles partner, veteran tennis star Leander Paes on Thursday pulled out of the 18th Asian Games starting on Saturday. The 45-year-old Indian, winner of 18 Grand Slams, was asked to team up with struggling singles player Sumit Nagal after All India Tennis Association (AITA) agreed to pair […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39398,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39397","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39397"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39397\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39399,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39397\/revisions\/39399"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}