Ramkumar Ramanathan and N Sriram Balaji won their respective singles on the opening day of their Davis Cup World Group I play-off tie against Pakistan to give India a 2-0 lead here on Saturday.
Pakistan’s Aisam-ul-haq Qureshi gave his all in a tight opening singles but the intensity of the match and tough conditions took a toll on him as he suffered a hamstring injury in the third set, which prevented a close finish to a hard-fought contest.
Ramkumar, India’s top singles player in the tie, served extremely well in the match and also returned better in the second set to prevail 6-7 (3-7), 7-6 (7-4), 6-0 while 43-year-old Aisam served 10 double faults in the match.
Ramkumar’s powerful serves was key to the outcome of the match. He served nine games at love, keeping the points short and crisp. Down by a set, Ramkumar wriggled out of a tough situation while serving at 3-4 in the second set and never looked back in the match in which he fired 20 aces.
In the second singles, Balaji, a doubles specialist, was challenged by Aqeel Khan, but the Indian defeated him 7-5, 6-3 in the rain-hit second singles.
Balaji broke Aqeel once in both sets. His movement, strong serve and use of drop shots all came together for a comfortable win in the end. India are one win away from advancing to the World Group I. Yuki Bhambri and Saketh Myneni will now look to seal the tie on Sunday when they take on Muzammil Murtaza and Barkat Ullah in the third match. India have never lost to Pakistan in Davis Cup history, winning all seven ties so far, and the trend is likely to continue.The cold weather did make the conditions difficult for both teams.
Pakistan have always punched above their weight in home conditions on grass courts but India were too strong for them. “This will go down as a special win for me given we are in Pakistan. It is not easy to win away,” Ramkumar said after the win.
“It (grass courts) suits my style of play. It is one of my favourite surfaces. I adapted really well. Aisam slowed down the game while serving. It was not easy but I was all pumped up,” he said.
Aisam said he gave his 100 per cent in the match. “It was really cold, making the balls heavy. I did not make many mistakes when I had breakpoints in the second set. But he served well,” Aisam said.
“In the tie-breaker also, he came up with the goods, but I did not make many errors. Then I started feeling pain in my groin and it spread to my thigh. That slowed me down and also my focus shifted to the pain. Ramkumar also started to serve better. But I feel proud, I played hard,” he said.
Ramkumar got the kind of start he needed in the second set as the Indian reeled off eight straight points to go a break up as Aisam dropped serve at love. Ramkumar, though, squandered the opportunity to further build pressure by dropping his serve in the fourth game. In game eight, Ramkumar saved two breakpoints.
In a repeat of the first set, it all boiled down to a tie-breaker and this time it was the Indian who got the break on the first point by hitting a service return winner.
In no time Ramkumar zoomed to a 4-0 lead and soon had five set points. Aisam saved the first four but Ramkumar nailed it on the fifth with an ace. Ramkumar drew the first blood in the third set, breaking Aisam in the second game. He attacked Aisam’s service with his forehands.
Aisam was up 40-15, but Ramkumar hit a passing backhand winner and followed that up with another winner to make it deuce. He then found a service return winner to earn a break point and Aisam served a double fault to help his rival.
Aisam was now struggling and took a medical time-out to treat his groin and hamstring.
Ramkumar just ran away with the match after that, finishing off with an easy backhand drop shot.
It has been a long 60 years since India last went to Pakistan, when they won 4-0. They won the last encounter too, in 2019, 4-0 which was played in neutral venue Kazakhstan.
