By IANS
Kolkata : Indian tennis ace Mahesh Bhupathi said Sunday he was available to represent the country in next year’s Beijing Olympics.
“As I have said earlier, I am available for the Olympics. And the rest is now up to the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) and the All India Tennis Association, (AITA),” Bhupathi told reporters ahead of the Sunfeast Open final here.
A fall in the number of spectators this time was attributed to the absence of Sania Mirza due to injury and the live cricket telecast of the Twenty-20 World Championships in South Africa.
“The absence of Sania Mirza has affected the number of spectators. Twenty20 cricket too had diverted people’s interests from this tournament. But we could not do much about the scheduling,” explained Bhupathi whose company Globosport is the WTA tournament’s promoter.
“But thankfully we are not dependent on the crowd to run the tournament. We raise our money through sponsorship and TV rights. The crowd is for the players. It’s a spectator sport and the money is the little extra we make,” he said.
Bhupathi, however, did not seem to be too confident with the prospects of Indian players that participated in this tournament.
“Definitely, tennis as a whole hasn’t grown much in our country, especially women’s tennis. That apart you cannot produce a world champion overnight. But, players like Tara Iyer, Ankita Bhambri and others have been given opportunities. Now, it’s up to them to make good use of these opportunities,” he said.