The Indian table tennis contingent’s performance at the ITTF Australia Open could suffer after seven of the 17 squad members, including Commowealth Games double gold medallist Manika Batra, were disallowed to board a flight at the Indira Gandhi International Airport.
The Indian contingent had to leave for Melbourne for the Australian Open, scheduled to start on Wednesday.
The players were stunned to hear only 10 of them could board the aircraft since the plane had been overbooked. Batra vented her anger out on Twitter, prompting Sports Authority of India (SAI) director general to step and make alternative arrangements.
Seven squad members, including paddlers Batra, Madhurika Patkar, Mouma Das, Harmeet Desai, head coach Massimo Costantini and support staff members Kishore Dey and Amarjeet Singh thus were scheduled to board a Singapore Airline flight late on Sunday night.
It will mean the players would arrive in Melbourne barely 12 hours before their first match.
“It is extremely unfortunate that the players’ performance would suffer due to Air India’s mismanagement,” M.P. Singh, secretary general of Table Tennis Federation of India, told The Hindu .
“Thanks to the intervention of other relevant authorities, alternate arrangements are made, which would at least ensure that the players would not miss out on the tournament. ”
