Tennis
Gaurav Kalra, Senior editor, ESPNcricinfo 7y

Mahesh Bhupathi confident of World Group breakthrough at Davis Cup

Tennis

India's Davis cup captain Mahesh Bhupathi has said that despite the unsavoury controversy involving Leander Paes stomping off from Bengaluru after being excluded from the final four-member team against Uzbekistan in April, the door remains open for the 44-year-old veteran to return to national duty in the future. 

Paes and Bhupathi had taken pot shots at each other via social media at the conclusion of that tie, which was in fact Bhupathi's debut as captain.

Paes was excluded from the six-member Indian squad (including two reserve players) that will take on Canada in Edmonton in a World Group tie from September 15 to 17. An AITA official insisted the decision was made purely on tennis considerations and as a result, Rohan Bopanna, who is 17 in the individual doubles rankings at the moment, was picked over Paes, who has slipped to 59, as the only doubles specialist in the team.

"No, the door is never shut on anyone," Bhupathi told ESPN. "There is a criteria which the AITA has put into place after the last tie or the tie before and I have always been clear that I would like to have the option of three singles players and they have obviously picked Rohan on the basis of his ranking.

"From my perspective, we need to put out the right team forward to win the match. We need three points on the three days and it doesn't matter to me who brings them. I have no favourites, my job is to get those three points so we can get in the World Group."

India's chances of breaking into the prestigious 16-team World Group for next year have brightened considerably in recent weeks after impressive performances from the leading singles players in the camp - Yuki Bhambri and Ramkumar Ramanathan.

Bhambri reached the quarterfinals of the Citi Open in Washington last week, beating World No. 22 Gael Monfils along the way. In June, Ramanathan caused a huge upset defeating World No.8 Dominic Thiem in Antalya. Bhambri is currently ranked 157 while Ramanathan is at 180.

"Yuki is having a great comeback season and Ram is having his breakthrough season," Bhupathi said. "From my perspective, I am just hoping they are both healthy for another 30 days because they are both coming in with a lot of confidence and winning a lot of matches.

"Yuki was 88 in the world so he is just making his comeback to where he belongs. Obviously, when you come back from injury it is very hard and he has been able to do that very quickly, which is testimony to the fact that that's where he belongs, in the top-100. He is consistently beating players in the top-150 comfortably and now in Washington he proved he can beat top-100 guys also consistently.

"Ram is 22 years old and in terms of tennis he still has a lot of work to do but obviously working with Emilio Sanchez this year has been a shot in the arm for him and I watched his first round in Cincinnati. Emilio was at the match, and you could see Ram was looking at him after every point for encouragement. So he obviously believes in his coach and the coach believes in him so hopefully he can stay the course and break into the top-100."

 

To ensure the players are well prepared for the tie, Bhupathi will conduct a week-long training camp in New York from September 4 before the team leaves for Edmonton. Since the tie will be played indoors, Bhupathi wants to ensure they are attuned to conditions where factors such as the "sun, rain, breeze and wind" are not in play, especially as Indian players aren't used to playing indoors too often.

Drawing on his experienced of having competed in a fair amount of tournaments indoors over his long professional career, Bhupathi says winning under controlled conditions requires players to be on their "A game" and the focus at the preparation camp will be on ensuring that is the case.

It is unclear yet if World No.10 Milos Raonic will be available for the tie but in 18-year-old Denis Shapovalov, Canada will be able to call upon one of the game's rising superstars. Shapovalov reached the semi-finals of the Rogers Cup in Montreal recently, upsetting Rafael Nadal in the Round of 16, and is currently on a career high ranking of 67.

 

He is expected to be joined by 78th ranked Vasek Pospisil and 127th ranked Peter Polansky, making Canada a formidable outfit, even if Raonic decides to give the tie a miss. Bhupathi, though, is undaunted by the challenge as he seeks to lead India into the World Group for the first time since 2011.

"We were never expecting an easy match obviously, we knew they were going to be a strong challenge," he said. "Having said that my boys have played a lot of Davis Cup. Shapovalov has never played five sets before and we will exploit every single condition that we can to give ourselves the best chance.

"I think people need to understand how hard it is to make the World Group of 16 teams when there's 200 teams playing in the Davis cup unlike a lot of sports where you have five or 10 teams playing the sport. We are playing one of the biggest global sports out there and to make it to the elite 16 is a big deal and it will be special if we do."

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