Former India tennis player Somdev Devvarman came out to defend 19-year-old Sumit Nagal a day after the All Indian Tennis Association dropped the teenager from the Davis Cup team owing to disciplinary issues. In an open letter published by Indian Express, Devvaraman lashed out at the AITA for the way they publicly humiliated Nagal.
Devvarman said that the youngster was nursing a shoulder injury that required surgery and was not available for selection in the first place for the India’s clash with New Zealand next month in Pune. He added that the matter could have been handled in a private manner rather than being made public by the AITA.
Devvarman wrote, “As you were openly bringing bad publicity to our young player Sumit Nagal, one has to wonder, what were you really trying to accomplish there? Were you trying to teach Sumit a lesson? Are you trying to make an example out of him? Are you trying to cover up the bad decision your selection committee made with picking only 5 players for the next Davis cup tie and leaving out our highest ranked player Rohan Bopanna?
“Is Sumit Nagal perfect? Probably not! He hasn’t done things perfectly by any means. But he is a good kid. He is a hard working kid and with the right guidance he has the potential to be a fantastic player for our country. Just another reminder here that Sumit has DENIED all these allegations made against him,” he went on to write.
Devvarman said that he trained with Nagal in December and knew about his shoulder injury. “If you had any interest in your players you should have this information. It’s really not that hard to do. It just requires a little bit of the ‘caring about your players’ factor that nobody from your organization has shown any interest in since I have been around. The poor kid was contemplating a shoulder surgery in the beginning of December and a couple of senior players in the country had decided to come together and help him out to make an informed decision about the best way to move forward.
“For your information, he is not available to play the upcoming Davis cup tie in Feb because he has literally just started hitting tennis balls again to test how he feels and again for to be clear, there’s still a chance he undergoes surgery if he continues feeling so much pain. So please don’t give us any crap excuses of why he has been dropped and why you have a 5 member team instead of the 6 you are supposed to have. It is simply false information and extremely unethical of you to make such statements. But once again, useless is as useless does,” wrote a clearly furious Devvarman.
The retired player also accused AITA officials of leaving a Davis Cup match, in which he was in action, midway as they were getting late for a party and expected him to lose the encounter anyway. Devvarman won the match and said he could smell the alcohol on the AITA officials when they congratulated him. “I am also aware that they will clearly deny my claim, but to those reading, do you think I’m making this up?” he wrote.