Davis Cupper Rohan Bopanna and Wimbledon girls' doubles champions Sania Mirza will spearhead the Indian challenge at the Asian Tennis Championship, to be held in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, from September 23 to 27.

Harsh Mankad and Sunil Kumar Sipaeya, and Megha Vakharia, Isha Lakhani and Ankita Bhambri are the other members of the Indian team.

The winner of the tournament gets a wild card entry into the main draw of the Australian Open next year.

Rohan Bopanna, who yesterday regained the No 1 Indian ranking from Prakash Amritraj following the latest ATP Entry Rankings, reached the final of the last edition of the tournament at the same venue.

The Asian Championships, formerly known as the Championships of Asia for amateurs, was inaugurated by the International Lawn Tennis Federation in Hong Kong in 1972. But its origin can be traced back to 1949 when the International Lawn Tennis Championships of Asia was held in Calcutta, and during the 1950's, in Colombo, Ceylon.

A statement from the All India Tennis Association said things were very different back in 1972. Hu Fa-Kuang, the then president of the Asian Tennis Federation and one of the prime movers behind that first attempt to bring Asian players together in Hong Kong, informs: "It [the first championship] was held at the South China Athletic Association in King's Park (Kowloon) and, during play, the heavens opened up. It rained so hard we couldn't dry off the courts for the final. So we poured kerosene on the court and lit it to speed up the drying!"

Overall, 12 out of the 17 member countries of the Asian Tennis Federation sent players to that first Asian Championships, including teams from Korea, Singapore, Ceylon, India, Indonesia, Iran, Japan, Malaysia, Thailand, Taiwan and the Philippines, who fought through fire and rain for that first championship trophy.

Indian great Vijay Amritraj, an inexperienced teenager then, was runner-up in the men's singles to compatriot Jaidip Mukherjea, though an eyewitness account suggested it was actually Iranian national champ Taghi Akbari who won the championships. Intriguing, to say the least. Nevertheless, Vijay did eventually manage to win the men's title three years later in 1975.

After 1972, the championships were held in other exotic cities such as Manila, Jakarta and Beijing. The last Asian Championships were held in Taipei in 1997, when local favourite Wang Shi-Ting swept all before her, winning the ladies' singles, doubles and mixed doubles titles on home turf.

Until 1989 it was an event strictly for amateur players but since that year professionals have been permitted to enter. During the past ten years, the championships have been able to attract corporate sponsorship and sought-after by Asian countries, who have lined up to host it in their capital cities. Hong Kong hosted the championships for four consecutive years, between 1991-1994, when it was called the Salem Asian Championships.

The present Asian Championship is a jubilee one; 31 years have passed since the first continental championships. And it is obviously no accident that this jubilee championship is being held in Tashkent.