Davis Cup: Time for young guns to stand up

On August 2, Vishnu Vardhan was witness to senior partner Leander Paes’s emotional outpouring following their doubles loss at the Olympics. The youngster didn’t know what went wrong despite playing his heart out for more than two hours at the Wimbledon. But one thing he knew for sure was that his time had come and a far greater and more onerous responsibility of the national team awaited him in the near future.

Six weeks later, Vardhan has been called on to shoulder the responsibilities in India’s Davis Cup Asia Oceania Group-I relegation play-off campaign against New Zealand over the next three days.

The play-offs will begin on Friday at the Chandigarh Lawn Tennis Association’s courts.

Vardhan has been drawn against New Zealand’s No 1 player Jose Statham in the second singles encounter on Friday. With non-playing captain SP Mishra fielding him alongside young Divij Sharan in the doubles clash against the duo of Michael Venus and Artem Sitak on Saturday, Vardhan would be in action on all the three days as on Sunday, he will take on Kiwi No 2 Daniel King-Turner in the reverse singles.

However, it is Yuki Bhambri, the other promising youngster, who will open India’s campaign against King-Turner in the first singles. There is a possibility that the hosts may field local lad Sanam Singh in place of Vardhan in the reverse singles in case India settle the issue on the first two days itself.

Interestingly, this will only be the second time in 18 years that the hosts will be playing a Davis Cup tie without their two stalwarts — Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi. The Lee-Hesh duo, which enjoyed the longest doubles winning streak of 23 ties in the tournament’s history, is missing from action for altogether different reasons.

If Paes has chosen to skip the tie to gear up for the World Team Tennis event in the US, then Bhupathi was shown the door by All India Tennis Federation (AITA) along with his Olympic Games men’s doubles partner Rohan Bopanna for disciplinary reasons.

This has given an opportunity to 20-year-old Bhambri and Vardhan, who impressed everyone with his attitude at the London Olympics, to cement their places for many years to come.

Chandigarh’s hot and humid conditions are a concern for the visitors. But the Kiwis are counting on their vastly experienced players to see them through against a completely inexperienced Indian side. Vardhan’s big serve can play a crucial part on the newly-laid synthetic courts.