The Indian tennis team has suffered a defeat at the Davis Cup as everyone must have anticipated it. Some glimmer of expectation swiftly gave way to uncertainty because of which the whole mess seems to have occurred. India’s Davis Cup campaign with the presence of no star players took off on a terrible note with the home side rattling with 0-2 against South Korea after the conclusion of the opening day of Asia-Oceania Group ‘I’ tie at the RK Khanna Stadium in New Delhi on Friday.
Ranjeet Virali Murugesan, the No.1 player for India in the tie, could not pull up a victory as he meekly gave in with the 1-6, 0-6, 1-6 score to Min-Hyeok Cho prior to the drubbing of Vijayant Malik who offered an easy win when trailing 4-6, 5-7, 0-3 against Suk-Young Jeong.
There is hardly any scope for rankings in Davis Cup and one hoped the debutant duo would get an edge with a positive play to the core. It had occurred in the past but not this time.
The drumbeats, the high pitch noises and even the fluttering national flags waved by the veteran Leander Paes and company in the backdrop could not result in a change of fortunes. Not even Sania Mirza’ availability in the stands. Fire under the belly was missing.
Ranjeet, getting into the lead with 40-15 in the first game, got worse to drop his serve and could never get back into his game. He was stubborn in his moves, struggled to play the ball and made a string of errors. Cho successfully wore him down in a few odd rallies with perfect hitting and whenever Ranjeet appeared to be clinging onto the net, he was treated to some gushing shots that passed by him.
More specifically, it was Cho who only got better with each point, more due to his Indian counterpart, whose game plan totally got torn. So heavily did Ranjeet struggle that he could contain his serve only once during the match.
The consolidating blemish in the unranked Korean’s game was when he got away with his serve in the fourth game of the first set. But he quickly got his rhythm back to reel off 12 games before Ranjeet contained in the fourth game of the final set. It produced situational relief. Cho didn’t result in anything afterwards and completed the set and match with a forehand crosscourt winner, dropping only two points in the midst.
It draws curtains on a sore viewing and carried away the focus with 22-year-old Vijayant, who now had the onus to ensure the home team on even keel.
Eventually, he produced some effort with his power-packed strokes. The young lad from Panipat fought for each point and prolonged Jeong several times in the match. He served perfectly with intention, ferociously engaged in rallies but his forehand appeared to be his undoing. The Indian dropped his serve in the fifth game of the match with two forehand errors and Jeong, agile on feet and solid on serve, took the lead.
