PUNE: The decision to not recommend three of the 12 tennis players in the Indian team for the Asian Games was taken after "the matter was discussed with experts", the Sports Authority of India said on Monday.
The sports ministry had omitted Mukund Sasikumar in the men's, Vaidehi Chaudhari and Sahaja Yamalapalli in the women's from the list of names submitted by the All India Tennis Association citing non-fulfillment of its selection criteria.
As per the ministry's criteria, in the case of tennis, players must have been ranked in the top-eight in Asia during the 12 months prior to the start of the Games. The Asiad tennis competition rules, however, allow each nation to field any two players per event.
"As per the manual calculation of Asian ranking, only three players are fulfilling the criteria in the men's singles category and none in women's singles. However, the matter was discussed with experts who opined that Sumit (Nagal), Ramkumar (Ramanathan), Ankita (Raina), Rutuja (Bhosale), Prarthana (Thombare) and Karman (Kaur Thandi) have high potential for winning medals," Aakash Pundir, a SAI assistant director who looks after tennis, told TOI in a written response.
Pundir added that relaxation was given to the selected players for "justifiable reasons" as provided in the ministry's guidelines, after taking into account that in the last Asiad in 2018, Indian players ranked around 200 then had gone on to win medals.
Asked why the same exemption was not given to Mukund, Sahaja and Vaidehi, Pundir said that their rankings were way beyond relaxation.
SAI had considered the players' singles or doubles ranking, whichever was higher, and in the case of Ramkumar, it happened to be his doubles ranking. However, there are seven players -- apart from Rohan Bopanna, Saketh Myneni and Yuki Bhambri who have been picked in the team -- ranked above the 28-year-old in doubles.
"Team selection is the sole prerogative of the NSF under the national sport code. We can only recommend or not recommend the names submitted to us," Prashant Singh, a deputy director at SAI, said.
