Ankita’s show didn’t merit TOPS funding: Devvarman
Tennis’ national observer Somdev Devvarman insists that he has nothing “personal” against Ankita Raina and his decision to exclude her from the TOPS was based on his assessment that she would not make it to the Tokyo Olympics.
Ankita was left out of the financial assistance scheme despite being India’s top-ranked player. The Sports Ministry included second-highest ranked player Karman Kaur Thandi and Prarthana Thombare apart from Sania Mirza for ~50,000 monthly allowance. Realising that a mistake has been made by leaving out Ankita, the AITA had later requested Sports Ministry to include Ankita and Divij Sharan.
“I have nothing personal against any player in the country, I constantly feel the responsibility of being extremely careful while recommending government funds to any player,” Somdev said about the non-inclusion of players.
Somdev said Ankita has not shown progress on the Tour.
NEW DELHI:
“That being said, my reasons for not recommending Ankita Raina were simple. If you study her ranking graph you will surely notice that she has not yet qualified for the qualifying of a single Grand Slam, let alone get a direct main draw acceptance.”
“You obviously understand that well over 200 people participate at these events almost solely based on merit alone. So it is my contention that if you are consistently not one of the top 200 players in your sport, you are unlikely to have a special performance at the Olympics.
“Using this as a parameter I felt it was fairly safe to assume that she would be unlikely to qualify for the Olympics where roughly the top 50-60 players are selected,” Somdev explained his rationale.