Hosts India faces elimination in the opening day of the Davis Cup as Italy lived up to their reputation to win both the singles in the Davis Cup Qualifiers at the Calcutta South Club on Friday.
With 0-2 down, India’s doubles team of Rohan Bopanna and Divij Sharan will have to encounter a must-win situation on Saturday.
After the initial hiccups from the experienced Andreas Seppi, it took an hour and 11 minutes for him to win over Ramkumar Ramanathan 6-4 3-2 and the dashing young Matteo Berrettini displayed a grand show of emerging potential by defeating Prajnesh Gunneswaran 6-4 6-3 in under an hour.
After the initial day setback, the non-playing captain Mahesh Bhupathi said,” Focus is on tomorrow. We are aware that we have a job at hand. It will be a lot harder and no time to give up now.”
He took the inspiration from the history of Indian team who bounced back from a similar situation to win in China 3-2 in Asia/Oceana Group last year.
“They are so much more experienced. If you take your chances, you will get rewarded. Strange things happen as it happened in China. I know Italians are stronger than China but we will take one match at a time.”
