Billie Jean King Cup (previously Fed Cup) - India

[jayakris]

I wish we had patriotic people in charge of Indian Team selection

I think they are patriots and all, but they are incompetent, lack vision and creativity, and are basically "yes men" and "yes women" who are usually the only ones who can seem to survive at AITA. Actually I think Rohit Rajpal is also a good patriot and all. But he is a strongman politician. He may even turn out to be a good president too, if he becomes that. My only issue with Rohit was that AITA should have never picked him as the Davis Cup captain, with his lack of a Davis Cup record. But he was not in the selection committee to pick himself!... To be the AITA president, the required specs are different, and Rohit is probably a good one. At least he knows all about Indian tennis now.

(The rumor I heard had a good name as the General Secretary. The GenSec is the one who actually runs AITA in the end, so that was positive. Who knows, maybe AITA will get better!)

[prasen9]

From my understanding Maaya would be required to be present with the team , Aryan Shah was the reserve player for Davis Cup and he was with the team whole time, he had to skip Chennai Challenger since he was only in qualies which couldn't make it.

By the way, welcome to the forum, Deekshith. Feel free to introduce yourself, though not required! Moderator, Jay

Thanks a lot Jay, myself Deekshith from Bangalore, Engineer by profession but a passionate Tennis lover and Rafan by heart Lol.
Have played Tennis at college levels but never any serious Tennis. Have been following Indian tennis closely for past one year , would love to contribute which ever way possible to grow the sports.Mostly want to introduce my daughter 5 years old to Tennis in couple of months and let's see where the journey takes. Thanks

Welcome Deekshith. Thanks for sharing a bit of your background. Good luck to your daughter.

[jayakris]

It is all set to go this week in Pune, starting April 8th.

[jayakris]

ITF's page for the BJK Cup Group-1 qualifiers: https://www.billiejeankingcup.com/en/dr ... 25/group-i (Select Asia-Oceiania from the box to the right).

A schedule is not done yet, I think. ITF says April 7th start though. (EDIT: That was wrong at their page, of course).

[jayakris]

It seems the matches will start at 3 pm IST. A schedule on who plays whom is still not available. It is just one day to go. When will ITF et their act together on announcing some of these things early enough, so fans can plan to show up. Argh.

[rajitghosh]

3 pm? It would be super hot.

[jayakris]

I guess earlier than 3 pm will be even hotter. What can they do? Need to et three matches in, and it would take anywhere from 5 to 7 hours. 6 to 6.5 hours with the breaks in between the matches. Probably want to finish by 10:30 or 11 in the worst case.

They are starting at 3:30 pm, as per the order of play, anyway. Should cool down a bit after 4:30 pm.

IND vs NZL, KOR vs TPE, and THA vs HKG on Tuesday.

[jayakris]

Players, as per the MSLTA tweets (in the order they showed the players names):

KOR - Boyoung Jeong, Dayeon Beck, Eunhye Lee, Dabin Kim (Sohyun Park appears in the MSLTA insta update)
IND - Ankita Raina, Maaya Rajeswaran, Prarthana Thombare, Sahaja Yamalapalli (Shrivalli and Vaidehi were in a separate tweet)
HKG - Eudice Chong, Hong Ching Wu, Hong Yi Cody Wong, Justine Leong (Shang Ling and Man Ying Maggie pics are on MSLTA insta)

They have not tweeted on other teams yet. MSLTA has put up Monique Barry, Lulu Sun and Aishi Das pictures on Instagram. Practice pics of Mananchaya and Tararudee from Thailand are also there.

Looks like most of the good players have shown up. And it looks like Maaya will indeed be playing.

[arjun2761]

Unlike last time, when China was virtually unbeatable, none of the teams here look unbeatable. However, several of them can also beat India. Hopefully, with home court advantage, we can advance from this group.

[sameerph]

Strangely, they have still not announced the final team. So, we do not know if Maaya is a reserve as earlier announced or has replaced one of the players in the announced team.

Only thing certain is we are playing New Zealand tomorrow. NZ have top 50 player Lulu Sun in their ranks, so that 1 match will be very tough to win. We need to aim to win the other 2 matches in the tie.

[ericcw]

Any info if Maaya is playing? I think she is ready.

[jayakris]

^^^ No, Maaya is not in the first tie's playing four, so either Maaya or Vaidehi is a reserve. Sahaja, Shrivalli, and then Ankita/Prarthana for the first time against NZL.

Shrivalli won easily against Aishi Das, 61 61...

Sahaja is playing the #1 spot and down a break at 2-3 in the first set.

ITF has live stream from all three courts. India vs NZL is at https://www.billiejeankingcup.com/en/ti ... cc8f86ea9b (Click on the matches to see the livestream link)

[sameerph]

Sahaja lost 3-6 3-6 against Lulu Sun. This was expected against a top 50 player.

So, it comes down to doubles now. Ankita-Prarthana are up against Lulu Sun-Monique Barry.

[jayakris]

Ankitha-Prarthana are down 36 00

They lost 36 46, so we lost to NZL 36 46. Lulu Sun is just too good at this level. Not for nothing that she was a Wimbledon semifinalist. Damn Longhorn [A rare occasion when I would say that!]

[arjun2761]

Well last time we had Qinwen Zheng who was handing out bagels quite liberally. They also had other good players. Lulu Sun may be good enough though to get NZ to qualify just by herself.