Paes deserves to go with someone who wants to play with him: Bhupathi

LONDON: Wimbledon's No.7 seeds in the men's doubles — Mahesh Bhupathi and Rohan Bopanna — scored a 6-0, 7-6 (1), 6-2 win over Uruguay's Marcel Felder and Tunisia's Malek Jaziri on an outside court on Wednesday. The all-Indian combine, who needed only 17 minutes to wrap-up the first set, took longer to put away media queries during a post-match meeting, mostly regarding the duo's Olympic participation.

Bopanna, who came out firing in the opening round match, was happy to take the questions. "We are very excited that we're going to represent India in the Olympics," he said. "There's nothing bigger than representing your country in the Olympics. For me, it's my first time. Obviously grass being my favourite surface, coming back here after Wimbledon is great."

While much of the tennis talk around the All England Club has revolved around the top players these last couple of days, Indian tennis' Olympic dilemma wasn't lost on anybody. So much so that Bhupathi and Bopanna were asked about the merits of putting country before self. Bopanna claimed: "Last year when I decided to break a very successful partnership (with Aisam Ul-Haq Qureshi) to team up with Mahesh to prepare for the Olympics, I put country before self."

When asked by an international journalist why 'no one wanted to partner Paes,' despite a great individual record, Bhupathi said, "Every one seems to think that I'm the one manipulating and pulling the strings for all these extremely individual and successful tennis players like Sania (Mirza), Rohan and Somdev (Devvarman). It's not true. People need to ask hard questions. Being the No.1 player in India, he (Paes) definitely deserves to go to the Olympics, but he deserves to go with someone who wants to play with him."

While saying the situation couldn't have gotten uglier for Indian tennis, Bhupathi made his stand vis-a-vis the Olympic mixed doubles competition clear.

He said: "In Sania's press statement (on Tuesday) she has clearly stated that we have won two Grand Slam titles together, one of them as recently as two weeks ago. Now they have to decide what it is they want to do, win a medal for India or as Sania said, keep one player (Paes) happy."