The country’s No. 1 tennis player, Somdev Devvarman, has pulled out of the Asian Games to be held in Incheon, Korea, from September 19.
Though it may be viewed as the disheartened response of a disappointed man who had been overlooked for the Khel Ratna award (despite him winning two gold medals in the last Asian Games in Guangzhou apart from the singles gold in the Commonwealth Games at home), the 29-year-old Devvarman has told the national federation that he was opting out to focus on the professional circuit to improve his ranking.
For sure, the 143rd-ranked Devvarman will not be shirking national duty when India takes on Serbia in the Davis Cup World Group play-off to be staged in Bangalore from September 12 to 14. He will be fighting along with Yuki Bhambri, Rohan Bopanna and Saketh Myneni to take India back into the World Group against the intimidating odds, expected to be posed by world No.1 Novak Djokovic and company.
For someone who had slipped to a rank of 656, following a shoulder surgery, in 2012, the year in which he competed in the London Olympics on a wild card, Devvarman had done remarkably well to climb back to 90 last year. He had reached a career-best rank of 62 in 2011.
It will be interesting to see how the AITA fills the vacancy, either with the reserve Divij Sharan, the doubles specialist ranked 112 in the world, or with any of the other leading singles players like Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan (293) and R. Ramkumar (298).