The Davis Cup team is to be picked on Tuesday for the February 8-10 playoff against Uzbekistan
The Davis Cup team is to be picked on Tuesday for the February 8-10 playoff against Uzbekistan
NEW DELHI: The Indian Davis Cup selection committee meets on Tuesday to choose the four-man squad that will take on Uzbekistan in the February 8-10 playoff on grass in Delhi.
But Mahesh Bhupathi withdrawing his self-imposed embargo has put the powers-that-be in AITA in a bit of a fix.
Leander Paes has proven Bhupathi’s original contention that at the Asia-Oceania Group I stage, he can pull off the match with just about anyone tagging along.
At 68 on the ATP doubles rankings, Rohan Bopanna has begun to assert himself as a more complete player.
In the company of Rajeev Ram, his close three-set victory against fifth-seeded Paes and Paul Hanley at the Australian Open further affirms the fact.
This allows the AITA to consider fielding a squad with three singles players — Bopanna, Prakash Amritraj and Somdev Dev Varman — along with Paes.
That the captain has a tendency to come in for the crucial fifth singles, however, questions the need for this composition. With Varman having won a Futures recently, the AITA may be loathe to have him in the reserve though he is an unknown quantity on grass.
Secretary Anil Khanna’s differences with Bhupathi are also a factor that compounds the situation further. Khanna sat on Bhupathi’s Khel Ratna application for 2005 and Bhupathi has been openly critical of Khanna’s schemes of closed Asian tournaments.
Uzbeks Denis Istomin and Farrukh Dustov are ranked 216 and 255 in world singles. The two have not shown up on the circuit this year after the first week. They are obviously holed up figuring out how to get their boom going on grass.
The ability of Bopanna and Amritraj to pull off close matches is still hanging in the balance of hope and fact. In such a case India’s strongest bet is to have Paes ready in case he has to deliver the singles chop. The best way to do that is to bring in Bhupathi to play the doubles.
The presence of a partner with whom he has won Grand Slams will make it all the easier for Paes to stay fresh for three days of the tie. Not giving the two a shot at playing together in an Olympic year would also make for negative publicity, the likes of which AITA would prefer to avoid.
Paes has stated in the past that Bhupathi would always have a place in his team. The strength of that proclamation will be tested on Tuesday.
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