Nadal has pulled out of the the first match.
India is up against overwhelming favourites Spain in the Davis Cup World Group play off tie.
In a slight boost for India's chances in the Davis Cup World Group Play-off against Spain, star visiting player Rafael Nadal has pulled out of the opening singles tie due to a stomach upset. Nadal's pulling out means that Ramkumar Ramanathan is taking on Feliciano Lopez in the opening match of the Davis Cup tie at the DLTA Stadium.
The second singles of the tie will be between Saketh Myneni and world number 13 David Ferrer, according to the draw announced by the International Tennis Federation on Th On the second day tomorrow, the experienced Leander Paes will pair up with Saketh to face French Open champions Feliciano Lopez and Marc Lopez.
The reverse singles will be played on Sunday.
The pulling out of Nadal, a 14-time Grand Slam singles winner, is a huge dampener for the tennis fans in the Capital who turned up in huge numbers to watch the Spaniard in action. India had beaten Korea 4-1 in their Asia/Oceania Group I second round tie while Spain defeated Romania with the same margin in their Europe/Africa zonal tie. India and Spain have locked horns thrice so far in Davis Cup with the European nation leading the head-to-head record 2-1. The last time India played Spain was as far back as 1965 when they lost the away tie 2-3.
"We are the underdogs and we have to find a way to do well, put everything on line and bled blue on the court. If we can finish 1-1 after day 1, we will have a good chance. So everything depends on first day," Saketh said.
Paes added: "I am really looking forward to the weekend, playing with the young boys and rewrite some history for India."
Nadal said on Friday, "It's going to be tough for everybody. It's an important confrontation with both teams wanting to go to the World Group. May be we have better names and on ranking we're higher but India team knows the conditions well so the home advantage will be with them, so it will be a tough one".
"We are used to playing in different conditions but here the humidity is higher than even during the seasons. So we need to be fit and with best of five sets in this conditions, it will be hard. We need to adapt to the conditions and be prepared for the start."
Asked how important is this tournament, considering he is coming back from injury, Nadal said: "Injuries are always tough. It's difficult to comeback but I think I did well. I had a good Olympics and then I competed well at the US Open.
You can watch the match on DD Sports
The livestreaming is available on the Davis Cup website. Here is the link
With agency inputs
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