By Debayan Mukherjee
Kolkata, Oct 15 (IANS) Non-playing captain Mahesh Bhupathi has revealed that India will wait till November 4 for the International Tennis Federation (ITF) to possibly change the venue of their Davis Cup tie against Pakistan after expressing reluctance to travel to the neighbouring country.
According to well placed sources, the deteriorating relationship between the two countries is their main concern and the Indian players have written to the AITA requesting them to change the venue.
The AITA will now write to the ITF asking them to change the venue.
“We are waiting for ITF decision on venue by November 4,” Bhupathi told IANS on Tuesday.
In September, ITF had said that the tie will take place either on November 29-30 or November 30-December 1 in Islamabad.
However, there will be a review of the security situation on November 4 to decide if the Asia/Oceania Group I tie will take place in Islamabad or it can be shifted to a neutral venue.
The tie was originally scheduled for September 14-15 in Islamabad. But due to security reasons, the Davis Cup committee had to postpone it to November.
India were all set to go to Pakistan before relations between the two countries deteriorated in the aftermath of the abrogation of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir which granted the state special status.
The ITF had previously turned down India’s security concerns before finally settling for a discussion on the matter.
(Debayan Mukherjee can be contacted at [email protected])
–IANS
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