CHENNAI: The Indian Davis Cup team will have a week-long camp in New Delhi ahead of their tie against Pakistan in Islamabad early next month. “We are doing a one-week camp from January 22,” coach Zeeshan Ali told this daily. “The main reason we are doing that is the surface we are playing on. If it was hard we were playing on, there wouldn’t have been a requirement for a camp as such.
“But given that we are playing on grass and we are playing against a team that is experienced... we have a lot of good players but unfortunately in this day and age, grass isn’t the preferred surface. Also the weather conditions at that point in time is going to be very similar to the one we are going to face in Islamabad (a maximum of 16-17 and a minimum of of 3-4). Keeping all of those conditions in mind, we thought it would be good to get the guys to come in early and help them find their feet on grass.”
Even though two of India’s top three singles players have made themselves unavailable for the tie (Sasikumar Mukund and Sumit Nagal), the visitors start favourites. Ramkumar Ramanathan, who had turned his attention towards becoming a full-time doubles exponent over the last 18 months, will be the lead singles player.
Raina in 2nd qualifying round In rare good news for India’s tennis fans, Ankita Raina showed courage to advance to the second qualifying round of the Australian Open on Tuesday. Raina beat Spain’s Jessica Maneiro 6-4, 5-7, 7-6(10-4). She will face Czech’s Sara Bejlek in the second round on Wednesday. Nagal, the only Indian men’s player in the top 450, will take on France’s Geoffrey Blancaneaux in the first qualifying round on Wednesday.
