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New Delhi, August 14
In a big snub to India’s national tennis federation, tennis’s world governing body ITF today refused to either postpone or shift India’s Davis Cup tie against Pakistan out of Islamabad.
The International Tennis Federation (ITF) has communicated to the All India Tennis Association (AITA) that timings or the venue of the September 14-15 tie won’t change.
Earlier in the day, AITA had asked ITF to either postpone the tie or take it to a neutral venue “suo moto”, given the current diplomatic tension between the two countries.
Instead, ITF has shared their security plans with AITA and offered them to have a discussion on Monday with their security consultants. “They have shared their security plans and based on that, they feel the timings (dates) or the venue need not shift. They are not understanding the tension that has been prevailing between the two nations,” AITA secretary general Hironmoy Chatterjee said. “We had asked for a dialogue with the ITF Board but they said the Board does not deal with Davis Cup matters, it’s the Davis Cup Committee which does. So ITF security advisors and Executives will now discuss the matter with us on August 19.”
“Now we will try to convince that they postpone the tie or provide us an alternate venue. If they do not agree, we will take a call on Monday what to do next,” Chatterjee added.
It has been learnt that India’s non-playing captain, Mahesh Bhupathi, has requested AITA to include him too in the conference call so that he could speak on behalf of the players.
Sources say that Bhupathi has even forwarded a communication to ITF through AITA, trying to convince them on a neutral venue. When contacted, Bhupathi neither confirmed nor denied this.
AITA, taking a more aggressive stance than earlier, had said it wants ITF to take the call to shift the venue based on the current situation and expressed surprise that the governing body is asking India to make a request as “this responsibility rests with the ITF.” — PTI
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