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Paes has hope for singles wildcard

Shailesh Soni

The direct entries for the 2000 Olympic tennis event, announced by International Tennis Federation, puts a question mark over the possibility of Leander Paes defending his bronze medal at Sydney.

The list consists of 55 players out of the top 82, based on the July 10th rankings. Leander Paes has been out of the game for quite sometime due to injuries and his ATP ranking has gone down considerably, and is nowhere near the acceptance level.

Jiri Vanek of Czech Republic, at 82, is the last direct entry.

But there are still nine wildcards to be picked by the ITF and Tripartite commission (ITF, IOC and some National Olympics Associations) by August 15th. This gives some hope for Leander.

From the rankings as of July 10, the players from countries not represented in the list are: 86 Juan Antonio Marin (Costa Rica), 97 Paradorn Srichaphan (Thailand), 103 Markus Hipfl (Austria), 104 Orlin Stanoytchev (Bulgaria), 105 Ronald Agenor (Haiti), 106 Attila Savolt (Hungary), 121 Harel Levy (Isreal), 125 Sebastien Lareau (Canada), 141 Kevin Ullyett (Zimbabwe), 148 Leander Paes (India).

Thus, this puts Leander as 10th on the waiting list. But when the ITF and the commission for wildcards meets to decide representation from two big continents - Asia and Africa - one is sure they will consider Paes's name, as firstly he is a defending bronze medallist, besides Wayne Ferreira of South Africa is the only one from the two continents.

One is also not sure whether the Asian Tennis Federation's will argue for Paes, as Thailand's Paradorn is ranked higher than the Indian ace. But then again, a couple of withdrawals/injuries will probably happen by then and Paradorn may make the direct entry anyway.

So, let's keep our fingers crossed till then.