New Delhi: The closure of Pakistan’s air space in the aftermath of the Balakot air strikes has resulted in India losing the hosting rights of the junior Davis Cup and Fed Cup, a source in the All India Tennis Association (AITA) said Tuesday.
Sixteen under-16 Davis Cup teams, including Pakistan, were to travel to India for the annual competition, often dubbed as the World Cup of tennis. The junior Davis Cup was to be held at the DLTA complex from April 8-13 while the Fed Cup matches were scheduled, April 15-20.
“Pakistan’s air space was locked and airports (in India) were also on high alert. No one knew for how long the uncertain situation will prevail. So, a consensus emerged that it’s best to shift the venue and India could host tournaments in future,” a highly-placed source told this agency. Bangkok has been chosen as the replacement for Delhi and it will host both the tournaments.
The source said logistics became a big issue for almost all the participating countries, because Pakistan had closed down its air space.
“Since the air space was locked, the flights had to take a detour, which meant increase in cost and more travel time. For instance, Kazakhstan would have taken three-four extra hours to reach here in the prevailing situation,” said the source.
“So there was a discussion among the International Tennis Federation (ITF), hosts AITA, Asian Tennis Federation (ATF) and a few other stake-holders and it was decided that for the time being, it was prudent to shift the venue,” added the source.
AITA secretary-general Hironmoy Chatterjee however, attributed ‘lack of funds’ which led to India not hosting the events.
“Raising funds for tennis tournaments is very difficult in this country. We had recently hosted the Davis Cup in Kolkata and now we are short of funds. The government also does not help so we informed the ITF that we can’t host it,” Chatterjee stated.
It has been learnt that it would have cost AITA about Rs 50 lakh to host each of the tournament and a part of the expenses would have been borne by the ITF.
PTI
