Paes could have played Davis Cup tie if he had arrived earlier for practice camp, hints Bhupathi

India’s Davis Cup non-playing captain Mahesh Bhupathi on Thursday defended his decision to select Rohan Bopanna instead of Leander Paes, hinting that he left out the latter as he had not practiced with the squad from the start of the camp, The Hindu reported.

“The conditions are quick here. Rohan has been serving well, and seeing the ball well. He has had a good start to the year,” Bhupathi was quoted as saying.

Bopanna, who had won the Chennai Open with partner Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan, had also entered the Dubai Championships final along with partner Marcin Matkowski. Paes, meanwhile, has also bagged his first title of the season this year, albeit a Challenger event in Leon last year.

Paes arrived in Bengaluru, the venue for India’s Davis Cup tie against Uzbekistan, only on Tuesday night.

“These boys have been here since Sunday. Sriram Balaji and Rohan Bopanna have been playing a lot of sets together,” Bhupathi said. “Unfortunately for Leander, yesterday was his first day. He played three games before it started raining. Doubles in Davis Cup is always a high stress situation, so throwing Leander and Balaji in would have been a roll of the dice for me. If I had a full team here on Sunday and Monday, I probably would have had time to make a dedicated decision,” he said.

Bhupathi, though, took to the offensive when reminded that he too had skirted the line and arrived late in the lead up to previous Davis Cup ties in his heyday.

“I think every captain has a different style. I have made my style pretty clear to my squad,” Bhupathi said. “I run the team the way I think it should be run. I think that 25 years of experience should give me the ability to do so.”

Bhupathi, though, clarified that it was not the end of the road for Paes. “Him being on the team is invaluable in terms of experience and energy,” he said.

Uzbekistan’s doubles player Farrukh Dustov also weighed into the issue with some humour.

Asked to translate for captain Petr Lebed, Dustov replied for his skipper when ask by a reporter if Paes’ exclusion surprised him. “There was no surprise. We were expecting this,” Dustov said, on behalf of Lebed.

An amused Dustov, who had said on Wednesday that he expected Paes to play the doubles rubber clarified that, he was speaking for Lebed when made the previous statement.

“The previous question was for Lebed - I only translated for him. Me personally, yes, I am surprised, but Lebed is not,” he quipped.

Earlier in the day, Paes had slammed the decision to drop him saying that selection criteria should be transparent. “A captain can have his style, but criteria for selection should be transparent. If it was form, I just won an event,” Paes was quoted as saying by reporters ahead of the Davis Cup tie starting on Friday in Bengaluru.