Olympics-Tennis-Bopanna says Indian governing body misled players Mighty 790 KFGO

(Reuters) Rohan Bopanna has accused the governing body of Indian tennis (AITA) of misleading players, the government and the media for his appointment to the Tokyo Olympics double competition with Sumit Nagal.

AITA announced that they had named Bopanna and Divij Sharan in the men’s singles, but the pair did not get directly into the games because their combined ranking was not high enough.

It then withdrew from the Sharans nomination and announced that it would nominate Bopanta and Nagal, who have already made it to the Tokyo singles competition.

However, Bopanna said Monday that the International Tennis Association (ITF) has never approved his participation in Nagali because no changes were made to the appointments after the June 22 deadline, except for injuries or illnesses.

AITA misled players, the government, the media and everyone else by saying that we still have a chance, the former doubled world No. 3 tweeted.

Indias Sania Mirza, who competes in the women’s singles with Ankita Raina, said the situation was absolutely ridiculous and shameful.

This also means that we would have sacrificed a very good shot for a medal in the mixed pair if we had played as planned. We were both told that you and Sumits had been given names, Mirza tweeted.

According to AITA, Bopanna and Mirza’s comments were inappropriate and that the players did not know the rules.

We at AITA tried to help players in all combinations, but they failed to make the cut based on rankings, AITA said in a statement https://aitatennis.com/aita-condemns-misleading-and-inappropriate-tweets-by- Rohan-bopanna-ja- sania-mirza.

Does Bopanna mean we should have written her name with Nagal a month ago when Nagals ranked in the 140s and Sharan in 78?

An ITF spokesman told Reuters that if more were withdrawn from the event, compensation would come from athletes already on the ground.

(Shrivathsa Sridhar reports in Bengaluru and Sudipto Ganguly in Tokyo; editor Peter Rutherford)