When it comes to sports other than cricket, we Indians don’t have much to boast about but there was a time when we had the best doubles tennis team in the world with the remarkable pair of Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi. How good they were together can be understood by the fact that they won 4 Grand slams in a year and if their egos hadn’t come in between, they would have easily won an Olympic Gold Medal till now.
However, that didn’t happen! In fact, things are moving in the direction of becoming worse after Leander has alleged that he has been kept out of Davis Cup team by captain Mahesh Bhupathi without any reason.
India has won the Uzbekistan tie by 4-1, something which has happened for the first time in the 27 years. However, Leander slammed Mahesh for not taking him in the team without any solid excuse as he said,
“The criterion was supposed to be form, which obviously doesn’t seem to be the case. It seems to fluctuate a lot. At one time, it is based on rankings and other times, it’s based on likes and personal preferences. Sometimes it’s not on personal preferences; it is based on who plays deuce court and who plays on ad court. And now it is based on form. On form, you guys know better who has played better.”
Mahesh also went ahead and made their WhatsApp messages public:
Mahesh also explained his side of the story in an interview to India Today,
“At no point did I ever communicate to Leander that he was in the scheme of things to play. I even have a WhatsApp conversation to show you where I had specifically told him that he was in the reserves and only if he wanted to come should he come knowing that he wasn’t in my scheme for the final four. This was as early as March 5. He, to his credit, suggested that he would definitely come and contribute to try and take India back to the world group even if he was in the reserves.”
Leander was further aggravated when Mahesh made the WhatsApp messages public. He took to Twitter and posted this:
— Leander Paes OLY (@Leander) April 9, 2017
Well, we can just say that whatever these two are doing is not at all expected from mature sportspersons and this will also affect the younger players in a negative manner. Won’t it be better if they behave like mature people and set an example for youngsters?
What is your opinion in this regard? Do let us know in the comments section below.
