Bangalore: Former Davis Cupper Jaideep Mukherjea was on Saturday appointed president of the newly-formed Indian Tennis Players Association (ITPA) while Leander Paes was surprisingly named as one of three vice presidents.
The ITPA had its first meeting here and chose Mahesh Bhupathi and Somdev Devvarman as the other vice presidents. Karti Chidambaram, AITA vice president, will be the secretary of the association, Mukherjea announced. Other members of ITPA are Rohan Bopanna, Enrico Piperno, Manisha Malhotra, Prahalad Srinath, Aditya Sachdeva and Mustafa Ghouse.
The association has come up after 11 top players revolted against AITA, demanding better playing conditions. They made themselves unavailable for the tie against South Korea. Paes had stayed away from the rebellion and his becoming a part of the association came as a real surprise.
Mukherjea said ITPA is being constituted as a Section 25 company and is built on the premise that the existing structure of tennis administration in the country does not represent or adequately address contemporary issues faced by players in the country.
Mukherjea said membership is opened to all current and former international and national tennis players. "Basically, we want to help younger generation of tennis players. We are thinking of tournaments where Indian players can make some extra money," he said.
The body is thinking of having a foreign coach and conducting benefit matches for ex-players to raise funds for them. "We also want to conduct training camps for young players," Mukherjea said.
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