For the last couple of days, the Indian tennis team has been slugging it out on the practice courts at Rio under the watchful eye of non-playing captain Zeeshan Ali. Curiously, while Sania Mirza, Rohan Bopanna and Prarthana Thombare have been putting in the hard yards, Leander Paes is yet to arrive in the city.
Paes will partner Bopanna in the men's doubles and the competition is scheduled to begin on Saturday, August 6, leaving the pairing with precious little time to practice and prepare. Ali, who also serves as the coach of the Davis Cup team, says he is "in the dark" about Paes' whereabouts and has had no contact with him of late, leaving him with no choice but to simply wait and watch. Paes is now expected to arrive in Rio later on Thursday.
"Yes definitely it is not the ideal preparation," Ali told ESPN. "For the AITA and me being a selector too, with the Davis cup in Chandigarh two weeks back, the whole idea was to get both the players (Paes & Bopanna) to try and get as much practice as they can. So arriving on the 4th for a match that may be on the 6th is definitely not enough time.
"As captain obviously I would have wanted all the players to have been here to get used to the conditions and to get used to the courts. It is a tough situation right now with Rohan having to find people to practice with. We've got players from the other countries who are all practicing together and unfortunately Rohan is having to find people to practice with and that's not exactly the way we would have liked to prepare for the tournament."
ESPN understands that at a meeting between the players, AITA officials and coaches on the sidelines of the Davis cup tie in Chandigarh last month, Paes had agreed to arrive in Rio along with the rest of the players by August 1. However, he has chosen instead to play in the ongoing World Team Tennis in New York. Although his Twitter feed contains several recent references about competing in his seventh Olympics, by delaying his arrival into Rio, Paes has given himself very little opportunity to be well prepared to contend for a medal.
Bopanna, who had in fact asked to be partnered with Saketh Myneni and not Paes for these Games, is staying upbeat despite his partner missing in action. Besides practicing with Mirza, with whom he will partner in the mixed doubles, Bopanna has found fellow pros from other countries to get some preparation time in. On Wednesday, he spent the first bit of his training schedule playing alongside Serbia's Nenad Zimonjic before changing courts to link up with Mirza. With Paes unavailable, Ali joined forces with Thombare, who is at her first Olympics and will play the women's doubles with Mirza, to give Bopanna and Mirza a hit out as they look to find some rhythm as a mixed doubles combination.
"I think you should ask the captain, the captain is the one who tells me when he's here or not," Bopanna told ESPN when asked to comment on Paes' absence. "I have come here a few days earlier to get used to the conditions, practice as much as I can and work it from there. So there's nothing really to be affected or not affected by it. This is an individual sport, everyone chooses when to come and when not to come. It is not in my hands to do anything about it. I can only be prepared once my partner is here. Right now Sania is here, I am practicing as much as I can with her and take it from there."
In the eyes of most observers, given Paes' extended run of patchy form that has seen him slip below 50 in the world rankings, a men's doubles medal is highly unlikely. Now, with very little acclimatisation as a combination, the unseeded pairing will perhaps need a minor miracle to make a run at Rio. Paes and Bopanna have been drawn against Polish team of Marcin Matkowski and Lukasz Kubot in the men's doubles first round.