Thursday, Jul 17, 2003
Thursday, Jul 17, 2003 |
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Tennis
The confusion over Sania's ranking has caused a lot of anguish in the Indian tennis fraternity, which had been rejoicing at the elevation of its favourite junior to the world No.1 status after more than a decade when Leander Paes had enjoyed such a position. When contacted in London, the ITF responded with a profound apology, saying that there was a problem with the computer, which had awarded Sania the 180 bonus points that had originally been withheld. "Basically we had a problem with our computer system which awarded the bonus points this week, even though they should not have been. This was updated on the website after the ITF office had closed for the day. Therefore, we were not aware of the problem until Tuesday morning when we arrived in the office. We immediately closed the ranking pages so that they could no longer be viewed until the rankings had been corrected'', was the reply from the ITF explaining the situation. Hence, instead of 790 points, Sania was awarded 610 points which placed her at No. 3 behind Kirsten Flipkens (690) of Belgium and Andrea Hlavackova (680) of the Czech Republic. Sania's partner, Alisa Kleybanova of Russia, who had been elevated to No.4 by the computer with 600 points, was pushed down to No.15 spot. She now has only 420 points. All the confusion originally arose because Wimbledon had reduced the draw size of the doubles from 32 to 16 in the junior events without notifying or consulting the ITF. Of course, there is no provision in the ITF rules to take away the bonus points, which affects only the winner and the runner-up while the rest of the 28 players enjoy the points of a grade `A' tournament. As per the rules, failure to stick to the stipulated draw size, would mean that the "following year the number of points awarded to the tournament will be reduced". In another place, the ITF rule says, "Any tournament not complying with this regulation may be allotted a lower grade the following year, at the discretion of the junior competitions committee, or in exceptional circumstances, may not be accepted in the circuit the following year". Actually, it is the Wimbledon that should attract any penalty emanating out of the situation when rain had forced the reduction of the draw, and not the players who had beaten the best in the world to become champions. The ITF had closed the ranking section of its junior website for a long time on Tuesday, to fix the problem. The junior competitions committee has not yet met to discuss the subject and will do so only in October. Sania Mirza may still be declared No.1 with retrospective effect after the committee meets. On the other hand, she may overtake the ITF in reaching the No.1 status by doing well in the US Open in September. For the time being, the 16-year-old Sania has to be content at being No. 3.
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