CHENNAI, July 19: The tournament director of ATP Challengers, PL Reddy has hit out at the All India Tennis Association's decision to boycott the Association of Tennis Professionals Challenger series in the country as a ``retrograde step.''In his counter to AITA's decision taken at the executive committee in Mumbai on Thursday, Reddy, a former AITA secretary, said this would only result in Indian players , not being able to collect valuable ATP points.In a strongly worded statement, Reddy also pointed out that by its decision, the AITA ``would only be playing into the hands of those who are waiting on the side lines to create a situation of a parallel association as in the recent case of badminton.''Reddy has pointed out that he had been conducting ATP Challengers in India without a break for many years. He stated that the normal procedure was that the allottee of an ATP tournament offered it to a state tennis association of his choice and the state association in turn conducted these with the approval of the AITA. ``Getting ATP tournaments is not the prerogative of the national association. Any individual, if he is sufficiently eligible, according to ATP standards, can get tournaments of international calibre, as awarded to him by the world body. To ignore such a situation and reject the ATP Challengers from coming to India is a retrograde step which will affect the rankings of the Indian players.''
