Davis Cup 2023 - India

[Rajiv]

The Team for the play off against Denmark starting next week on 3rd Feb is..

Rohan / Mukund/Prajnesh/Ram/Yuki with Sumit being the reserve.
Prajnesh will get one of the singles slot and if there is a provision for the reserve player to be considered for the opening singles then it could be a toss up between Sumit & Ram.

For Doubles will Rohan bite the bullet and partner Ram , or will it be Rohan & Yuki.

[sameerph]

Really hard to chose players for singles this time as nobody is in any sort of form.

Just to sum up what all 5 players have done in singles this year-

Prajnesh- 4-3 before today's match with 1 good win over a top 250 player and a close loss to current 265th ranked player
Mukund- 1-4 with all losses in straight sets
Ramkumar- 2-2 with couple of good wins in Pune
Sumit- 0-3 but all very close 3 set losses
Yuki- 1-1

So, Prajnesh clearly should be there. I think RamK should be played for second singles as the matches are on indoor hard courts which usually play fast. If the courts are slower, than Sumit can be played.

Rohan with either RamK or Yuki would be a good pairing. Denmark does not have a good doubles pairing.

[jayakris]

At least we don't have to argue about who is better than whom this time. They are all in bad form! Maybe just Prajnesh is in some sort of a better form (maybe!) than the others. No big expectations. Will be thrilled to be surprised by our guys though.

[Rajiv]

Prajensh will play their 400 ranked something # 2 and hope to get us the lead.
Ram/Sumit/Yuki whoever plays against Rune will be write off.
Doubles will be most crucial and if we take a 2-1 lead then , it wouldn't be a bad idea to try out Yuki against their # 2 as still feel Yuki has the singles wares and under pressure would perform better than whoever is our #2 , but all of this is speculation and depends on our doubles combination if Yuki is pencilled in, then for him to play the singles as well is a big ask.

[sameerph]

Prajensh will play their 400 ranked something # 2 and hope to get us the lead.

Just checked and their #2 August Holmgren who is ranked 483 was NCAA singles runner up last year and in the final took a set off Ben Shelton who reached AO QF this week. So, matches against him won't be easy at all.

This may actually turn out to be tougher match than the one against Norway last year.

[sameerph]

Draw is out for the tie which starts tomorrow and surprisingly we have decided to field Yuki in first singles match against Rune and Sumit in second singles against Denmark #2.

The rationale for selection is stated in this article-

Davis Cup: India To Face Holger Rune-Led Denmark In Group I Play-off Tie

The newly-laid indoor court is a bit slow and is offering waist-height bounce. According to captain Rajpal and coach Zeeshan Ali, Nagal is looking the sharpest on the Indian side.
Nagal also looked in good form in Pune where he went down fighting.

"The waist-height bounce won't help us like the grass courts, the lower it is, better it is for us. But still it is better than those high-bounce courts. It suits them more and that's why they have prepared such court where the home players can strike big," captain Rajpal told PTI.

"This tie we have 50-50 chance and I am looking for at least a 1-1 score on day one. Hope Yuki can produce something special." Coach Zeeshan explained the strategy.

"We wanted Sumit to play as our number one player so that he can play Denmark's second singles player on day one. The rankings of our players are such that it was possible only if Yuki or Rohan played as the second singles player, so it was Yuki," he said.

"We have played defensive in previous ties where we played against top players and it did not work. We had to do something different." The team management admitted that the side is feeling the pressure going into the tie without having a single top-300 playe

[Dinesh]

Beating August 2x and getting that doubles win is crucial. Unsure if Yuki will have the fuel in his tank. Let’s go, Team India.

[arjun2761]

Yuki almost certainly can't play 2 successive singles matches as he has shown over the last year. So, I think we will play Ramk and Rohan in doubles, and likely play Prajnesh or Ramk instead of Yuki in the reverse singles. Sumit will then just be fodder for a loss against Rune.

If this was in India we would have a chance to pull it off. In Denmark, it could be over in 3 matches.

[Atithee]

This is Davis Cup. Anything is possible. Let’s do it, India.

Zeeshan Ali doused any conspiracy theories by at least providing an explanation.

[sameerph]

2 matches against Holmgren and the doubles match are all must win matches for us as 2 matches against Rune are almost impossible to win. The ranking gap is too much to be overcome by any davis cup related uncertainty in results. In doubles we are favorites while in 2 singles matches we are probably 50-50 considering Holmgren is a NCAA runner up and so likely to be better than his ranking particularly in home conditions.

So, I would call our chances in this tie at 40%. Had it been a home tie it would have gone to more than 50%.

[prashanthm]

Yuki lost to Rune, 2-6 2-6. There was never a chance... Not sure what to make out of that performance...

[Dinesh]

Sumit hasn’t won a match on hard courts since 2021. Pretty brave of the captain to field him on this must-win rubber. Prajnesh would have been our best bet considering his recent form and indoor HC stats. Wouldn’t be surprised if August pulls this one off rather easily.

[sameerph]

Sumit lost the first set 4-6. He was a double break 1-4 down, got one break back and was 40-15 up on August serve to make it 4-4 but could not convert those 2 breakpoints and lost the set 4-6.

[sameerph]

Sumit leads 5-2 in second set.

[sameerph]

Sumit wins the second set 6-3.