Sometimes after watching a movie, you come out and wonder what prompted the director to make a movie devoid of any sense. It is so bad that you wonder how no one walked up to the director in the preview shows and told him that his movie was utter crap.
Indeed, as the Leander Paes, Mahesh Bhupathi, Rohan Bopanna, AITA saga rolls on into another day – the question that arises is why no one bothered to tell them that they were all committing hara-kiri? Are their egos so inflated that people were scared to tell that they were wrong?
By fighting this battle in clear public view, the players have shown that they are a far cry from the champions we want them to be. Is this what you want your heroes to do?
Paes has done his image no good. Reuters
You remember Paes as a patriot. You remember him as someone who beat Goran Ivanisevic in the Davis Cup. You remember him as someone who won the bronze medal at the Atlanta Olympics. You remember him as someone who won Grand Slams. Now though, he only stands out as a loser in the game of life.
When Mahesh Bhupathi won the French Open with Rika Hiraki in 1997, we were proud. When he paired up with Leander and reached four Grand Slam finals in 1999, our joy knew no bounds. When he won mixed doubles Grand Slams with Sania Mirza we thought age was no barrier for the 38-year-old. But now, we realise that he is ruled by a cruel ego.
Rohan Bopanna’s achievements aren’t as great as Paes or Bhupathi but he established himself as the logical successor to India’s doubles legacy. His groudstrokes are crude, he doesn’t move very well but he finally found something he was good at. At 32, he isn’t young anymore and it’s become rather apparent that he prefers political intrigue to playing on the courts.
The AITA came out and said that Bhupathi and Bopanna have no option but to play with Leander. And we would like them to stand by their words. If you say something, you should at least be prepared to back it up with deeds or is the AITA afraid that their fragile ego might take a beating if they decide to go with Bhupathi and Bopanna?
Indeed, the one thing that comes out of this whole mess is that all three players will make able administrators in the future. They love writing letters, they love playing the media card, they have enough people around them to give them bad advice, they love a fight and they never back down.
Either which way, this drama has gone on for too long. If we wanted to watch drama, we could just switch on our television sets and watch the saas-bahu serials every evening or even watch our TV presenters manufacture outrage. We don’t need Paes or Bhupathi or the AITA to do that.
It’s about time they shut up and let the tennis do the talking. It’s about time somebody told them to do that or is that too much to ask for? And if after causing us all this grief, they don’t win the gold, then god save them.
