Davis Cup 2019 - India

[jaydeep]

Imran Khan. He probably knows some tennis? Or he a pick it up in half an hour and he will still be better than anybody else they can send in to face us.

Another bummer from PTF, they are thinking about sending a junior team or boycotting the event altogether in the protest.

[RohitG]

This thread has been a roller coaster ride of feelings. The tie hasn't even begun yet.

[sameerph]

This is the news about Pakistani team selection -

Davis Cup: Pakistan pick two 17-year-olds to play against full-strength India

So, it is going to be no contest literally.

[PKBasu]

If they have a third string junior side, perhaps they can let our 46 year old play the fifth rubber (singles!). Of course, we may not need to play more than the first two singles and a doubles.
Sadly, of course, ITF have killed off the Davis Cup, so this tie is almost an academic exercise.

[jai_in_canada]

This thread has been a roller coaster ride of feelings. The tie hasn't even begun yet.

More like Divas Cup - given the cast of characters and the associated shenanigans and skullduggery.

[prasen9]

Kazakhstan is a very tennis-friendly place. At one time they had a crazy president who loved tennis and built courts all over. All of his officials were forced to play. Those who refused to play faced g

An extra "g" as in gravitational force?

[arjun2761]

So were they just dumped from a plane without a parachute?

[jai_in_canada]

Kazakhstan is a very tennis-friendly place. At one time they had a crazy president who loved tennis and built courts all over. All of his officials were forced to play. Those who refused to play faced g

An extra "g" as in gravitational force?

Whoa! Whoa! Whee! Whoa! It was all to make benefit glorious nation of Kazakhstan!!

P. S. I hope Prof is ok ... being cutoff mid sentence like that. President Borat is unpredictable.

[knarayen]

Kazakhstan is a very tennis-friendly place. At one time they had a crazy president who loved tennis and built courts all over. All of his officials were forced to play. Those who refused to play faced g

An extra "g" as in gravitational force?

Whoa! Whoa! Whee! Whoa! It was all to make benefit glorious nation of Kazakhstan!!

P. S. I hope Prof is ok ... being cutoff mid sentence like that. President Borat is unpredictable.

I dont know if it is the current president or past one, but all govt officials played tennis or they faced jail time or were shot in some cases if they refused to play. So they have great tennis infra and everyone plays. I thought it was a joke until my brother confirmed it.

[prasen9]

Can we make Nursultan the patron saint of Sports-India and get some support for our players? Here is what they have done: Getting players from other countries We can tell him that if he does not sponsor Sports-India efforts, we will go to Borat! That should do it.

May be a good moderator can help move these posts to some other thread?

And, if it is not off-topic enough, it seems Borat shamed Khazakhs enough to force them to modernize. Borat's impact

[jai_in_canada]

I thought Borat was an attempt to expose through parody the ignorant American stereotyping of a country that most Americans did not know even existed. But, hey, if that spurred Kazakhstan to develop, especially tennis, that's great. I was unaware of how Kazakhstan courted out of favour players from other Eastern European countries to successfully build their tennis profile - and help tennis overall. And I was even less aware of the autocratic tennis dictator that drove all that. "If you don't play the GAME I will SET you on fire with a MATCH!"

So here we are awaiting the India-Pak DC tie to be hosted in Borat Country. Interesting that both components of the former Mysore Pak (Bopanna-Qureshi) will be skipping the tie. There was much political/peace publicity ("Stop war, start tennis") with that pairing, and yet a few years later nothing has changed between the two countries, and ironically Qureshi himself is not living that slogan when it matters (a little).

[prasen9]

Yes, Sports-India's eclectic bunch brings you all sorts of news that you never knew. So, remember folks, if you are in Kazakhstan and playing tennis on a court for fun, do not taking it easily. Big Brother, I mean Big Sultan, is watching you and you may get arrested for not diving to return a ball, your old bones be damned. So hustle oldies! And, thank Sports India. We may have helped you by preventing you from getting a free tour of a Kazakh jail!

[jayakris]

Will start a thread for Davis Cup 2020 later...

Meanwhile, the draw was done, and subject to Borat not tying our players hands together to help Pakistan beat us, we will get to go to Croatia in March 2020 - https://www.daviscup.com/en/news/314610.aspx

[PKBasu]

Incredibly difficult draw for 2020. Croatia will be impossible to beat unless Cilic and/or Coric are injured...

[PKBasu]

The Davis Cup is a pale shadow of what it was for the past 110+ years. India has been playing since 1921, so we are a couple of years from the centenary of our participation. But tennis is one sport in which we have dominated Pakistan:

https://www.daviscup.com/en/draws-resul ... nright=IND

Until that epic thriller in 2006, when Aisam Qureshi won both his singles (against Bopanna and Prakash Amritraj), we had totally dominated the contests between the two countries. Sashi Menon as an 18 year old lost a reverse singles in 1970 and Akhtar Ali lost one in 1962. But we otherwise dominated. Interestingly India demanded a neutral venue in 1973 (two years after the 1971 war) and played in Malaysia. Haroon Rahim, who used to be a solid top-100 Pakistani player, seems not to have travelled to Malaysia (like Aisam's boycott this time).