We will be present in full strength for India, say tennis stars

After reports of top Indian tennis players keeping away from CWG made headlines on Friday, Leander Paes, Mahesh Bhupathi, Rohan Bopanna and Somdev Devvarman have jointly issued a press statement clearing the air. The trio said that they will play in full strength for India in the upcoming Games.

They also added that they want to end all speculations and hence decided to come up with this statement. "It is true that we wrote a letter to the AITA to voice some concerns we had about expenses that we were promised over the last year and a half, We have all submitted bills to various people at the AITA over this period, and now that the AITA has nominated us to represent India we requested them to make sure that the promises made are kept, we would like to put all speculation to rest and confirm we will be present in full strength to represent India against Brazil in Chennai in September, As for the CWG..."

On the payments retrieval issue, the players said that the CWG has promised to make payments on time. The news of players boycotting the Games came on Friday, after top male tennis players of the country said that their payments were due since long. Leander Paes, Mahesh Bhupathi, Somdev Devvarman and Rohan Bopanna had threatened to pull out unless the Sports Ministry clears their dues of a total of about 2 crore that have been pending for the past two years. The players had written to the All India Tennis Association saying they don't have the time to run around and are therefore authorising the AITA to deal on their behalf.

The letter said, "we unfortunately have no time to run around and speak to authorities & are therefore reaching out to you. We give you full authority to mention at your meetings that unless there is some traction to what has been promised to us within the next month, none of us will be available to play in Delhi in the CWG in October".

Read more at: http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/we-will-be-present-in-full-strength-for-india-say-tennis-stars-46082?cp