The ITF would like to congratulate Sania Mirza on her achievement in winning the Junior Doubles at the recent Wimbledon Championships. The ITF is particularly pleased to see a player who has benefited from Grand Slam Development Fund travel grants in the past going on to win a junior grand slam title.

Please find below an explanation regarding the current doubles ranking position of Sania Mirza:

A decision to reduce the draw in the doubles from 32 pairs to 16 was taken by the All England Club. In the view of the ITF the decision to reduce the draw detracted from the overall level of the doubles event at Wimbledon. As a result it has been decided that, at this time, the "bonus" double points will not be awarded and the matter has been referred to the next meeting of the ITF Junior Competitions Committee which will take place in October 2003. The decision to reduce the draw will be discussed by the Committee during this meeting and at that time a decision will be taken as to whether to award the bonus points to the players concerned.

The "ITF Doubles World Champion" will not be determined until the end of the 2003 year. Therefore awarding the bonus points now or in October will have no effect on the doubles champions title.

Sania Mirza is currently ranked No.3 in the ITF Junior Doubles Rankings.

On Monday 14th July an error occurred in the computer system used to calculate the ITF Junior Rankings, thus awarding the bonus points when they should not have been awarded. The computer system is linked directly to the ITFJuniors website, and thus on Monday evening Sania Mirza appeared at No.1 in the rankings. This was an error that occurred outside the working hours of the ITF in London and therefore was not discovered until the morning of Tuesday 15th July. The rankings were immediately removed from the site and replaced with the correct rankings.

The ITF apologises for any confusion caused by this technical problem.