Mahesh Bhupathi and Sania Mirza have been elected to the All India Tennis Association (AITA) Executive Committee. They take the two seats on the committee reserved for Sportspersons of Outstanding Merit (SOM).

Their Executive Committee seats are in addition to their election as SOM representatives to the AITA General Body. The SOM polls had an electorate of 31 SOMs.

The SOM seats were created by AITA’s amended constitution. Former players elected through this route hold four seats on the General Body, two for men and two for women, and two on the 15-member Executive Committee, one for a man and one for a woman.

On the General Body, Bhupathi and Sania will sit with the other two elected SOM candidates, Ashutosh Singh and Shalini Thakur Chawla. Singh is India’s Davis Cup coach.

Eight former players filed nominations for the SOM seats last month. Ankita Bhambri, Janaki Krishnamoorthy and Vishal Uppal, the Billie Jean King Cup captain, were the other three names on the Executive Committee nominee list.

“I think every federation needs players who have played at the highest level to help transform the sport,” Bhupathi told PTI when he filed his nomination. He gave Pullela Gopichand’s work in badminton as an example.

Bhupathi won 12 Grand Slam titles, four in men’s doubles and eight in mixed doubles. Sania won six, three in women’s doubles and three in mixed doubles, and was ranked world No. 1 in women’s doubles. Together they won two mixed doubles majors, at the 2009 Australian Open and the 2012 French Open.