New Delhi: Somdev Devvarman, Yuki Bhambhri and Sanam Singh are back in India’s Davis Cup tennis squad. After staying away from the tie against Korea, they have returned for the April 5-7 Asia/Oceania first round play-off against Indonesia in Bangalore.
Somdev, who led the players’ rebellion against the All India Tennis Associa-tion and Yuki were picked for the singles, while Sanam will double up as third singles player and partner Leander Paes in the doubles.
Shiram Balaji and Vijayant Malik are the two reserves. The selectors also decided to include promising juniors the new national champion Ramkumar Ramanathan and Arjun Khade to join the squad as hitting partners.
The selectors added a rider to the doubles combination, saying that the non-playing captain Shiv Prakash Misra and coach Zeeshan Ali will take the call before the tie.
Misra, who attended Saturday’s selection committee meeting, was requested by AITA secretary general Bharat Oza to continue for one more tie. The tie against Korea was to be the former Davis Cupper’s last as captain.
There is no Davis Cup commitment for India till next year after the Bangalore tie and by that time AITA is hoping to resolve all outstanding issues.
Oza hoped the players, especially Somdev will not have any problems playing under Misra. Among the many demands of players was the removal of Misra.
“We don’t expect anything.
“We only hope that players will come forward and play together. Misra wanted to step down after the South Korea match itself, but we requested him to see through the Indonesia tie,” said Oza, adding it is the executive’.
Doubles specialist Mahesh Bhupathi and Rohan Bopanna, despite their higher rankings on the ATP charts, failed to get the selectors’ nod, thus indicating the end of the road for the two Bangloreans.
In any case, Bhupathi,38, had said that this is his last year on the pro circuit, while Bopanna, 32, has a couple of more years.
The two players, who insisted on playing together at the Olympics against the selectors’ wishes that Bhu-pathi should pair up with Paes, were banned till 2014 on disciplinary grounds, but a court stayed it.
Chief selector Anil Dhupar was at pains to explain the media why they could not get Bhupathi or Bopanna, saying he and his colleagues decided on three singles players and one top doubles player purely on the basis of rankings.
“All the three players are good singles players, so there is no room for two doubles specialists,” said Dhupar. (IANS)
