Davis Cup: Doubles falter, push India on the backfoot
EDMONTON: India’s World Group hopes suffered a huge setback as Rohan Bopanna and Purav Raja lost the crucial doubles rubber to hand Canada a 2-1 lead in the Davis Cup Play-off tie, on Saturday.
Bopanna and Raja lost 5-7 5-7 7-5 3-6 to seasoned Daniel Nestor and Vasek Pospisil in two hours and 52 minutes to leave India with the difficult task of winning both the reverse singles to qualify for the elite 16-nation World Group. Raja, who has made good progress on the circuit was superb at the net with his deft volley winners but limitations with his serve and baseline strokes hurt India badly.
Drafted into the side in the last minute, Raja dropped his serve five times in the match -- twice while serving under pressure at 5-6 in the first two sets.
Bopanna’s big serving game was also missing as he served five double faults in team’s total of 12. His single- handed backhand winners were nowhere to be seen. Bopanna though managed to hold serve under pressure, even when faced with a match point in the 10th game of the third set. Neither he got good support from Raja nor he could lift the game of his partner.
“We played well enough to put ourselves in a position to control the match but we didn’t capitalise. At this level when you are playing two Wimbledon champions, if you don’t take your chances you don’t deserve to win,” Indian team captain Mahesh Bhupathi said after the match.
Bupathi also admitted that Bopanna was not at his best in the match.
“Bops fought hard. It wasn’t the best match I have seen him play but he found a way to hang in there which was the key.”
Ramkumar Ramanathan, will take on world number 51 Denis Shapovalov on Sunday before Yuki Bhambri locks horns with Brayden Schnur.