Guwahati, Jan. 20: The All Assam Tennis Association (AATA) has decided to take the directorate of sports and youth welfare, Assam, by the horns as far as alleged irregularities in team selection and coaches' recruitment are concerned.

The directorate had alleged that there were anomalies in the past in the ranking lists provided by the AATA for selecting the state school team for the National School Games. This reportedly prompted the directorate to hold open trials. But the tennis body has challenged the directorate to come up with specific cases of irregularities on the association's part.

Rubbishing deputy director of sports Jatin Borchetia's allegation against the AATA, the state association's president, Raktim Saikia, stated: "The AATA is transparent in its functioning and merit is not compromised at any point of time. Instead of using the terms like 'favouritism and incompetence' (against us), it will be more appropriate if Sri Borchetia can come out with specific cases."

Saikia felt the open trial would not be able to cater to all the players because there would not be enough time to prepare and the two-day trials would not be adequate to select a team.

He said since the School Games Federation of India finalises the annual calendar of events much ahead of the events, the state directorate gets enough time, at least a month ahead of the trials, to publicise them through newspapers and other notifications so that players get enough time to participate in a longer version of the trials.

About engaging coach Kawaljeet Singh for the AATA advanced camps, Saikia said Singh is a highly-qualified International Tennis Federation coach and could not be compared with National Institute of Sports (NIS) coach Srinivash Raut, whom the directorate has empanelled to select candidates for recruitment of contractual tennis coaches.

Borchetia had questioned the AATA about engaging Singh when Saikia had, in a report in these columns on Thursday, said NIS coaching course was no longer considered a competent qualification.

Responding to Borchetia's allegation that the AATA was not being able to produce quality players despite availing adequate facilities from the government, Saikia said Assam has constantly been making its presence felt at the junior level, but was failing at the senior level, primarily because of reasons beyond sporting activities - academic pursuits of players being one of them.