A fresh controversy has erupted over the composition of India’s tennis squad for the 2026 Asian Games, with the All India Tennis Association (AITA) publicly disputing a news agency report on who is really responsible for five players missing out on selection.
What The PTI Report Claimed
A Press Trust of India (PTI) report, citing a Sports Authority of India (SAI) source, stated that the five tennis players excluded from India’s Asian Games squad — Manas Dhamne (men’s singles), Vaishnavi Adkar (women’s singles), Sahaja Yamalapalli (women’s singles), Vaidehee Chaudhari (women’s doubles) and Prarthana Thombare (women’s doubles) — did not meet the criteria of being inside the top-8 of continental rankings, and were never part of the shortlist AITA sent to the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) in the first place.
The SAI source told PTI: “Their names were not received by Sports Ministry in the final list shared by the IOA (Indian Olympic Association). In fact their names were not there in the short list sent by the All India Tennis Association (AITA) to the IOA.”
AITA’s Response: A Same-Day Press Release
Within hours, AITA issued a strongly worded press release rejecting the report as factually incorrect. Secretary General Sunder Iyer said the Association had documentary evidence establishing that it communicated the names of the players in question and formally sought their inclusion in the Indian contingent.
According to AITA, a letter dated July 3, 2026, addressed to IOA CEO Raghuram Iyer, made what the Association called an “urgent representation seeking review of the exclusion of tennis players from the Indian contingent.” The letter reportedly named six players: Manas Dhamne, Ankita Raina, Sahaja Yamalapalli, Vaidehee Chaudhari, Vaishnavi Adkar and Prarthana Thombare.
AITA framed the issue as being about more than individual athletes, stating that the matter concerned ensuring India fields its strongest possible tennis contingent to maximise its medal prospects at the Asian Games. The Association said it had asked the IOA to urgently review the exclusions, reassess entries on an event-specific basis, and approve the players’ inclusion.
“Our position has been consistent: all players selected by the AITA selection committee should form part of the Indian tennis squad for the Asian Games, and no player should be excluded when their inclusion provides India with a legitimate opportunity to strengthen its medal prospects,” Iyer said.
The Ankita Raina Discrepancy
One detail stands out when comparing AITA’s July 3 letter to the current list of excluded players. Ankita Raina, whose case AITA says it specifically raised with the IOA, is not among the five players currently left out of the squad. This suggests she may have been added to the contingent following AITA’s intervention, even as the other five named players remain excluded.
If accurate, that would indicate at least partial movement on AITA’s representation — raising the question of why the same intervention did not result in the inclusion of the remaining five players, and where in the process their names appear to have been dropped.
Two Accounts, One Unresolved Question
The dispute essentially comes down to two conflicting accounts of the same paper trail. The SAI source, via PTI, says AITA’s original shortlist to the IOA never contained these five names. AITA says its July 3 letter to the IOA explicitly requested their inclusion, with documentary evidence to back it up.
Both cannot be fully accurate as stated, and neither side has yet released the underlying shortlist or the complete letter for independent verification. Until that documentation is made public, the question of exactly where the five players’ names were dropped from the process — at the AITA stage, the IOA stage, or somewhere in between — remains unresolved.
This is a developing story. Indian Tennis Daily will continue tracking updates on the Asian Games tennis squad selection process.