AITA to launch programmes for juniors

The All India Tennis Association (AITA), at its AGM held here Saturday decided to launch several developmental programmes, notably "Road to Wimbledon" series besides hosting a string of International Tennis Federation (ITF) tournaments besides Challengers and WTA events.

An AITA press release said that the Central Council, attended by more than 25 units, decided to conduct a five-week Road To Wimbledon with tournaments in Chandigarh, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai and Delhi.

The AITA will also undertake a MoU with Roland Garros, French Open for the promotion of junior tennis and coaching programmes, apart from hosting two ITF junior events in November in addition to the nine ITF Junior events already on the calendar.

In order to strengthen professional players, two more men's Challengers will be held in Pune and Indore and a $50,000 ITF Women's Challenger in Delhi in November, the release said.

The AITA decided to appoint two tennis players into the executive committee of the tennis federation, the criterion being the players should have represented India in Davis Cup, Fed Cup, Asian Games or Olympics.

Meanwhile, the AITA has terminated The Central Council and also decided to follow the Constitution of AITA and decided to "automatically terminate" the vice presidentship of Karti Chidambaram as he is also the president of the Tenpin Bowling Federation, but he was given the choice of resigning from TBF (I) and continue as the VP of AITA.

"The House also took note of the comments made by Chidambaram regarding the Asian Games team selection and took objection to the remarks questioning the integrity of the selection committee and in stating publicly that selected players, Yuki Bhambri, Saket Myneni and Sanam Singh should not have been selected in preference to some players from Tamil Nadu.

"The House noted that the team selected was recommended by the Davis Cup captain, Anand Amritraj and was done completely on merit."

"The House took serious note of the divisive comments as India is one country and there is no distinction between players as team selection is done purely by merit," the release stated.

The following were elected to the Executive Committee: Ashok Kumar, H. Chatterjee, A.B. Prasad, V.S. Sisodia, V.K. Batra, Suman Kapur, T.D. Francis, Anil Dhupar, S. Kannamwar, Asit Tripathy, Dinesh Arora and C.P. Kacker, according to the release.