Payment issue resolved,no CWG boycott

Indias top tennis players have confirmed their representation for the Davis Cup tie in September and the Commonwealth Games after they were assured by the sports ministry that all their dues would be cleared.

Indias top tennis players have confirmed their representation for the Davis Cup tie in September and the Commonwealth Games after they were assured by the sports ministry that all their dues would be cleared.

The move comes a day after the All India Tennis Association AITA released a mail signed by the players in which they had threatened to boycott the events if the payment issue was not resolved. Leander Paes,Mahesh Bhupathi,Somdev Devvarman and Rohan Bopanna on Saturday asserted that they had no intention of withdrawing from the national events and expressed discomfort at the fact their personal mails were released by AITA. In a joint statement,the players wrote: We would like to put all speculation to rest and confirm we will be present in full strength to represent India against Brazil in Chennai in September.

Rahul Bhatnagar,joint secretary of the ministrys International Sports Division told The Sunday Express: The players were concerned about the payment of dues but their participation was not conditional to that,Mahesh Bhupathi has confirmed that to me. We wanted to clear the payments ourselves as we are uncomfortable with the present situation. But we couldnt have done so without AITAs certification. Their chartered accountant should have submitted us the letters as they have done for tennis players other than these five.

The AITA had requested the government to compensate all expenses including economy class airfares for 11 tournaments each in 2009 and 2010 in which these players had participated but Bhatnagar says that he has been following up with AITA for the past two months and they failed to provide documentation only for these four players.

While the AITA had asserted that the government desires original bills Bhatnagar says,It was upon AITA to satisfy themselves with the bills,we only wanted to make sure that the tournaments for which compensation is provided have not been already funded by sponsors.

However,the ministry has refused to give in to AITAs earlier demand of increasing the number of days of compensation for the tennis players from the present allowance of 75 days and has also asserted that individual support staff cannot be provided to the players.