Davis Cup 2017 - India

[PKBasu]

Prajnesh has a similar career high in singles as Mahesh Bhupathi, but the latter was much the better player, with some stirring wins in Davis Cup and several main draw appearances in the Slams. His doubles commitments prevented him from achieving better singles rankings. And of course the same is true for Leander, especially when you consider Davis Cup, Olympics and Slams.
When all is said and done, Yuki hasn't yet played in the main draw at Wimbledon, the US Open and French Open. He is not on the same plane as Leander as a singles player yet. He has had a decent win over Monfils, but that is nothing compared to Leander's wins over Sampras and Federer -- and over #5 Thomas Enqvist at the Olympics and over Goran Ivanisevic and Wayne Ferreira on grass.

[prasen9]

Sameer, I know what you are saying and you are absolutely correct. Maybe I am not saying what I want to say clearly. Wins at challengers here and there do not excite me that much. So, whether we have it or not is not that satisfying to me. Leave aside Olympic medal and Davis Cup finals, I do not recall any of the current crop even making the QF of a major ATP tournament. Have they? Somdev at least made a couple of ATP finals. RamK's win against Thiem is what is starting to get me interested. If we see more of such matches, then we will know that Indian tennis is back.

[VReddy]

It is amusing how there are more or less same number of pages of discussion before and after about the team selection than matches during the tie.

I think it was the same case for almost all the Davis Cup ties / Olympics in the last few years. It will be there for one or two ties more before that saga ends.

Other than Ramkumar, we have nothing today to look forward to even in the future. Yuki is NEVER going to take us to the promised land despite the hype in this forum. All our doubles teams are mediocre at best. We are solidly not in the golden age of Indian tennis that is largely the emerging consensus in the forum. But, we are afflicted with "group speak" here as is the norm in most places. There are a few dissidents but their voices are usually drowned and they simply stop posting.

Golden age / Mini-Golden age is all relative. Some contributing factors below for the optimism (from 2000's till now)

1. When did we have bigs wins such as Yuki / Ram had against Thiem / Monfils in the same year. On top of that, US Open finalist (Kevin Anderson) taken to 3 sets, Shapovlev (big next GenStar) taken to the brink and in other, almost lost a set.
2. 3-5 (incl. Saki/Praj/Sumit) of our players are in the Challenger league. In the last 15 yrs, we only really had Somdev (and Yuki when he is free from injury)
3. Solid benchstrength in the future stages who can milk points in the Indian futures without the big 4-5 being there

I could go on and on but its repeating the last 4 pages of this topic again.

we are afflicted with "group speak" here as is the norm in most places. There are a few dissidents but their voices are usually drowned and they simply stop posting.

If at all, this group is more often than not critical of Mahesh - probably for the right reasons. I would think your comment would apply to the group on the other side of the fence actually. Anyway, when I did respond - I called out the risky aspects of his work from my perspective (especially when Supreme Court expands their work from Cricket to Tennis), trail (nepotism) that he is leaving behind which I hope he corrects, because I really feel that Mahesh / Somdev combo is what Indian Tennis needs for the new few years atleast. Somdev hopefully for a long time but am always biased in favor of Somdev.

[sameerph]

Sameer, I know what you are saying and you are absolutely correct. Maybe I am not saying what I want to say clearly. Wins at challengers here and there do not excite me that much. So, whether we have it or not is not that satisfying to me. Leave aside Olympic medal and Davis Cup finals, I do not recall any of the current crop even making the QF of a major ATP tournament. Have they?

Yes, they have. Yuki made the Washington ATP 500 just last month and was the first Indian to do so at that level in a while. And before that RamK made the QF at a lower level ATP 250 tournament in Antalya.

Overall, I agree with you that achievement of these guys are still not at the level of Leander or Somdev but they are showing some signs a major breakthrough of that this year more than ever before.

[rajitghosh]

As far as Davis Cup is concerned India had a terrible period between 1975 and 1980 when Onny Parun had Vijay Amritraj ' s number. But during that period on the tour we had several good players. Anand was there as was Sashi Menon. Ramesh had emerged by 1979. There were quite a few others like Chiradip Mukerjea, Ashok Amritraj, Premjit Lall in his closing years, Jasjit Singh etc. Who were competitive. I just don't see that happening any more. Leander sacrificed his singles career to become a doubles legend otherwise he would have done better. Among the current crop barring RamK I don't see anybody reaching even a 2nd tier level.
Contrary to those worst years India's best years in Davis Cup were 1959-71 (era of 3 musketeers and Naresh Kumar with an Akhtar Ali and SP Misra for company), 1982-88 (Vijay, Ramesh and Anand), 1992-93 (Ramesh, Lee and some bizzare chip and charge tactics advocated by Naresh Kumar on clay) and 1996-98 (Lee and Hesh). Do we see a repeat? I don't foresee.

[Omkara]

RamK just had a breakthrough. Yuki....... Lets give them some more time..

If Leander made it to top 100 in 1998, then he did it at the age of 26 and could hardly stay for a year.

Yuki did it by 23.

Yes Leander had way more achievements and was more talented. But his game had major loopholes. Yuki has a much more balanced game. But Lee's achievements in Olympics and Davis Cup are bit difficult to match. At current form and fitness, it looks a tall task for these 2.

But I am hopeful.

[sameerph]

As far as Davis Cup is concerned India had a terrible period between 1975 and 1980 when Onny Parun had Vijay Amritraj ' s number. But during that period on the tour we had several good players. Anand was there as was Sashi Menon. Ramesh had emerged by 1979. There were quite a few others like Chiradip Mukerjea, Ashok Amritraj, Premjit Lall in his closing years, Jasjit Singh etc. Who were competitive. I just don't see that happening any more.

So, you are comparing to a situation 40 years back and in that context did you say that Indian Tennis will sink further in next few years. Sinking further that what ?

. Among the current crop barring RamK I don't see anybody reaching even a 2nd tier level.

How do you define 1st tier and 2nd tier. If 1st tier is top 50 ranking, I too doubt if anyone will reach that level. But, we did not have anyone at that level for last 30 years. If 2nd tier is top 100, Yuki had already made it to that level.

[rajitghosh]

As far as Davis Cup is concerned India had a terrible period between 1975 and 1980 when Onny Parun had Vijay Amritraj ' s number. But during that period on the tour we had several good players. Anand was there as was Sashi Menon. Ramesh had emerged by 1979. There were quite a few others like Chiradip Mukerjea, Ashok Amritraj, Premjit Lall in his closing years, Jasjit Singh etc. Who were competitive. I just don't see that happening any more.

So, you are comparing to a situation 40 years back and in that context did you say that Indian Tennis will sink further in next few years. Sinking further that what ?


Sinking further to the point where getting top 100 payers and people getting direct entries into grand slams become a rarity.

. Among the current crop barring RamK I don't see anybody reaching even a 2nd tier level.

How do you define 1st tier and 2nd tier. If 1st tier is top 50 ranking, I too doubt if anyone will reach that level. But, we did not have anyone at that level for last 30 years. If 2nd tier is top 100, Yuki had already made it to that level.

[Prashant]

Just my opinion: 1st Tier = consistently in GS Main Draw. Which we haven't had in a very long time.

[Atithee]

Vishnu, you are one of the few balanced members in the group. You are NOT a member of the "group speak" brigade that I mentioned. Alas!, however, your optimism is misplaced. And Somdev (the all time favorite top 100 opponent of any player) is the last one who I want around an Indian team. His association with Indian tennis ascend would be disastrous. But, you obviously think differently. I really have a hearty laugh when we are even mentioned in a world group level of tennis. We are not even top 25 tennis nation if best were to play for each nation, and I'm being generous here.

There is one world class individual player we have today and that is PV Sindhu in badminton. That's all.

[Atithee]

Prajnesh has a similar career high in singles as Mahesh Bhupathi, but the latter was much the better player, with some stirring wins in Davis Cup and several main draw appearances in the Slams. His doubles commitments prevented him from achieving better singles rankings. And of course the same is true for Leander, especially when you consider Davis Cup, Olympics and Slams.
When all is said and done, Yuki hasn't yet played in the main draw at Wimbledon, the US Open and French Open. He is not on the same plane as Leander as a singles player yet. He has had a decent win over Monfils, but that is nothing compared to Leander's wins over Sampras and Federer -- and over #5 Thomas Enqvist at the Olympics and over Goran Ivanisevic and Wayne Ferreira on grass.

[Saniapower]

There is one world class individual player we have today and that is PV Sindhu in badminton. That's all.

I want to add Srikanth

[Atithee]

I want to add Srikanth

I thought about it but he's still not there in my opinion. He's close though.

[VReddy]

Vishnu, you are one of the few balanced members in the group. You are NOT a member of the "group speak" brigade that I mentioned. Alas!, however, your optimism is misplaced. And Somdev (the all time favorite top 100 opponent of any player) is the last one who I want around an Indian team. His association with Indian tennis ascend would be disastrous. But, you obviously think differently. I really have a hearty laugh when we are even mentioned in a world group level of tennis. We are not even top 25 tennis nation if best were to play for each nation, and I'm being generous here.

There is one world class individual player we have today and that is PV Sindhu in badminton. That's all.

Thank you Atithee. I hope I am not proved wrong by Somdev

[prasen9]

If we rank nations in ascending order of the rank of their second highest ranked singles player, where would we be? This number is not the be-all and end-all, but, intuitively, I think this number should be highly correlated with Davis Cup success (assuming all players play DC, which I know they do not). I cannot think of a better simple number, but, suggestions are most welcome.

Here are the rankings:

Switzerland
Spain
USA
France
Germany
Argentina
Russia
Italy
Japan
GBR
Croatia
Serbia
Canada
Czech
Australia
Brazil
Belgium
Khazakstan
Ukraine
Portugal
Slovakia
Austria
India

So, Atithee we are #23 I think saying we are not in top-25 is tad harsh. We are certainly not top-20 and we are not really World Group level yet.