Former Indian tennis player Somdev Devvarman and the All India Tennis Association have been involved in a war of words with the way tennis is run. Recently Devvarman had pulled out of the proposed Centre of Excellence project following funding cuts to it.
The former India No.1 who was appointed as the national observer for tennis by the Sports Ministry, recently questioned AITA’s vision for the sport.
On Friday, when asked about the controversy during an the curtain-raiser event for an obstacle course race he will hold next month in the city Devvarman said, “When people don’t do their job very well, they have to point fingers at others.
“It doesn’t matter whether I’m the national observer or not. AITA has failed to show any progress in the last 30 years. I asked them how are we going to make the system better?
“And their response was ‘if he’s so great, why doesn’t he implement his vision?’ Are you joking? We’re not having adult conversations over here.”
Devvarman said it is important to create a proper system in place and warned that such fund squeeze will not help in getting the best people to move to India and settle here. “We need a culture where any kid anywhere feels that they have access to a certain system which can make them get better.”
“If you want to get the best people in the world you have to pay them the best. Imagine the risk these professional coaches take to shift their base to India. Imagine the battle I had to go through to convince certain people to come to India and then tell them they will only paid half of what was agreed.”
The 33-year-old was accused of bias after he did not recommend Ankita Raina’s name for the TOPS (Target Olympic Podium Scheme) funding. But he defended saying, “Well, you called the scheme Target Olympic Podium.
“Had you called the scheme Target Asian Games Podium, it would’ve been a completely different conversation.
“Let’s not forget, our very own Prajnesh Gunneswaran was also left out of the scheme and he was ranked higher than Ankita at all times. He’s going to break into top 100, he’s still not been funded by the government.”
