Mumbai: Such is the paucity of options in Indian tennis’ singles cupboard and the inexperience in its current Davis Cup squad that N Sriram Balaji, a doubles specialist, has again been called up for singles duty in India’s World Group I tie against Sweden over the weekend.
The Indian squad in Stockholm, without singles No.1 Sumit Nagal and No.3 Sasikumar Mukund alongside doubles No.2 Yuki Bhambri, wears a largely new look. It features a couple of teens — Aryan Shah, 18, and 16-year-old Manas Dhamne as reserve and Nagal’s replacement — and two players ranked outside 500 — Siddharth Vishwakarma (588) and Niki Poonacha (835) — besides Paris Olympian Balaji and experienced Davis Cupper Ramkumar Ramanathan.
India captain Rohit Rajpal chose to field Balaji and Ramkumar for the two singles rubbers on Saturday against the hosts’ top-ranked Elias Ymer and Leo Borg, son of the legendary Bjorn Borg, respectively.
Balaji, 34, was asked to play singles alongside Ramkumar on the opening day of India’s previous Davis Cup tie against Pakistan in Islamabad earlier this year. Pakistan, however, had a couple of 40-year-olds competing there, and India had Bhambri and Saketh Myneni for the doubles tie the next day. In the indoor courts of the Royal Tennis Hall in Stockholm, either Balaji or Ramkumar, or even both, would likely have to turn up for doubles as well on Sunday.
That’s partly down to Rajpal’s decision to deploy the squad’s two big servers and finer net players for singles on the indoor courts, and partly to the inexperience among the group in singles.
Teens Dhamne and Shah both earned their first Davis Cup call-ups and are still a bit raw for the top level. Dhamne, 16 and touted as the country’s brightest prospect, has more frequently competed on the ITF and ATP Challenger circuit this season compared to the last but is still work in progress in terms of stringing together a consistent patch of matches. Shah, 18, was competing in juniors till last year and moved fully to the senior ITF tour this year, winning a M15 title in Kingston. Both these youngsters will, though, only get richer with this Davis Cup experience.
Vishwakarma, 29, has sparingly competed this season while former singles national champion Poonacha has been increasingly making a mark in doubles having breached the top 100 ranking in June. It won’t be a surprise if Poonacha — he had beaten Nagal in the Pune Challenger earlier this year — is summoned to play the doubles tie on Sunday against world No.66 Andre Goransson and Filip Bergevi. Or if any of the newcomers get a crack in the reverse singles rubbers after that without the scoreboard pressure.
For that, Balaji and Ramkumar will have to deliver on Saturday against Ymer and 21-year-old Borg ranked 603, who was in India last year to play a couple of Challengers accompanied by his illustrious father.