The Indian Davis Cup team has never made the ‘home advantage’ count at the Delhi Lawn Tennis Association (DLTA) complex since the two grass courts there made way for synthetic hard courts to the build-of Commonwealth Games 2010.
It suffered defeats in all three ties — 1-4 to Republic of Korea (2013), 1-3 to Czechia (2015) and 0-5 to Spain (2016) — on the medium-slow hard courts in the national capital.
So, when captain Rohit Rajpal — who also serves as the DLTA president — picked hard courts as the surface for the upcoming World Group I Play-off tie against Togo, it came off as a surprise since the Indians have majorly preferred grass at home.
The decision was made keeping the availability of Sumit Nagal, India’s top-ranked singles player, in mind. However, for unspecified reasons, neither Nagal, nor country’s No. 1 doubles player in Yuki Bhambri are available for the tie scheduled on February 1-2 here.
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The winner of this match will fight for a spot in the Davis Cup qualifiers against one of the 12 winners from the other Group I Playoffs, being played this week in September. The loser will be relegated to World Group II.
India has not reached the qualifiers since its 1-3 loss to Croatia in 2021.
Against the three-time Davis Cup runner-up stands World No. 73 Togo, which will have to punch above its weight to upset the hosts.
The African nation returned to the ‘World Cup Of Tennis’ in 2022 after being absent for almost two decades and started its journey all the way from Group IV (Africa zone). It has done well to reach the World Group I Play-offs by winning 10 of its 11 ties in such a short span.
But it has not faced any opponent comparatively even close to the level of the current Indian squad.
The Indian squad comprises S. Mukund (World No. 365), Ramkumar Ramanathan (World No. 406) and debutant Karan Singh (World No. 496) as options for singles rubbers while Olympian N. Sriram Balaji (World No. 64) and Rithvik Choudary Bollipalli (World No. 79), another debutant, will pair up for the doubles.
On the other hand, Togo has just one player with an ATP ranking – Thomas Setodji (World No. 1256) while Liova Ajavon, Hod’abalo Padio and M’lapa Akomlo are the other members with Alisama Agnamba as the non-playing captain.
This is Togo’s only third best-of-five series in 12 fixtures since the comeback as every zonal tie (Group III and Group IV) featured only two singles and one doubles rubbers, all played on the same day.
Nevertheless, Indian skipper Rajpal, who earlier admitted that he had no data or footage regarding the Togolese team, hopes to guard against complacency after closely observing the visitors during multiple practice sessions ahead of the tie.
“In practice, they are all looking good. They hit the ball well. They are naturally athletic. They have beaten many good teams on the way. Yesterday, one of our seniors mentioned that India should look at 5-0 but their captain came right back and said, ‘Don’t take us for granted. We are here to win.’ We are not planning to take anybody lightly,” Rajpal said at the post-draw ceremony press conference on Friday.
“We have been practising hard for the last 10 days and I hope that the boys are going to do the job for India.”
Content Source: sportstar.thehindu.com