Paes, Sania to lead India's Asiad campaign
Sep 13th, 2006

NEW DELHI, Sept 12: Leander Paes and Sania Mirza will lead India's campaign in both the individual and team tennis competitions of the Asian Games to be held in Doha in December.
Leander Paes and Sania Mirza will lead India's campaign in both the individual and team tennis events at the Asian Games, in Doha in December.

Paes, who last played a singles match as Davis Cup captain against Pakistan in Mumbai in April, will be joined by Mahesh Bhupathi, Rohan Bopanna, Harsh Mankad, Karan Rastogi and Prakash Amritraj in the individual men's event.

In the doubles, Paes will pair with former Grand Slam partner Bhupathi while Amritraj will take the court alongside Bopanna, according to the team announced by All India Tennis Association on Tuesday.

The women's team will be represented by, besides Sania, Shikha Uberoi, Ankita Bhambri, Isha Lakhani, Rushmi Chakravarthy and Sandya Nagraj in the individual competition. The first four of them will play the team event while Rushmi and Sandhya are the reserves.

The doubles teams comprise the pairings of Sania with Shikha and Ankita with Isha. Paes and Sania form the star mixed doubles combine while Bhupathi and Shikha constitute the second team. The singles nominations will be announced later.

The AITA also confirmed Paes and Sania representing India in the Asian Hopman Cup to be played in Hyderabad in November. It also announced the appointment of Akhtar Ali as the non-playing captain for the Indo-Pak Series which will feature four one-day ties on November 6th, 8th, 10th and 12th.

Bopanna, Rastogi, Divij Sharan and Vivek Shokeen form the Indian team for the ties that will be held at Islamabad, Lahore, Chandigarh and Gurgaon respectively.