Davis Cup: Rohan Bopanna gears up for tournament farewell as India start as favourites against Morocco

Lucknow: Hauling themselves up from World Group II should not be a complicated task for India when they take on an unostentatious Morocco in the home tie, which will be more of a celebration of Rohan Bopanna’s Davis Cup career, which will come to a halt after 21 years on Sunday. Lack of singles players who could challenge the big boys of the ATP circuit, coupled with defeats in winnable matches, has hurt the Indian Davis Cup team badly in the last few years in this team tournament, but relegation to World Group II was a new low the Indian team hit in February. It was for the first time since the new format was launched in 2019 that the Indians dropped to this level. Much has changed since India last played in the Davis Cup tie in March, when they lost 2-3 to Denmark. Indian tennis has hardly had any memorable moments this season until Bopanna reached the US Open final last week.

Age is just a number and Rohan Bopanna proves it at 43 years and 6 months😎

Hats off to #TOPScheme athlete @rohanbopanna for making history as the 'oldest' tennis men's player to reach a #GrandSlam Doubles Final in the Open Era!

The legendary Bopanna 🎾 continues to script… pic.twitter.com/wPqeMyDO5E

— Anurag Thakur (@ianuragthakur) September 8, 2023

It’s not just the lack of on-court results in singles; off-court, the country also felt the disappointment of losing its only ATP 250 event. Yuki Bhambri, one of the finest players India has seen, has stopped playing the singles format. Ramkumar Ramanathan has dropped out of even the top-550 and is languishing at number 570. Such has been his plight this season that the Chennai player has made 17 first-round exits at different tournaments, including the lowest rung, the ITF Futures level. It’s not surprising that skipper Rohit Rajpal has not included Ramkumar in the lineup, though he remains a part of the squad to help train the players. At 43, Bopanna still playing solid tennis But Bopanna is still playing some solid tennis in the doubles format. At 43, he still is one of the most powerful servers on the circuit. His strokes still have sting, and he can still pull off those stunning passing winners from difficult angles or while running on flanks. It would have been ideal if he had got his farewell tie where he wanted – in Bengaluru – but he still has a chance to bid adieu to the Davis Cup before the home fans.

An unforgettable Davis Cup journey awaits...🇮🇳

Mukund Sasikumar and Sumit Nagal lead the charge in singles in the Davis Cup World Group II tie against Morocco, while Rohan Bopanna teams up with Yuki Bhambri on his last @DavisCup appearance....🎾🇮🇳#DavisCup #IndiavsMorocco pic.twitter.com/dz6rcNsUvr

— All India Tennis Association (@AITA__Tennis) September 15, 2023

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In 32 ties played since making his debut in 2002, the player from Coorg has won 22 matches, including 10 singles. He will team up with Yuki for one final time in Davis Cup, even as he continues to play on the ATP circuit. Ranked inside the top-10, he has no reason to hang up his racquet. The AITA felicitated Bopanna in a special event on Thursday night, where his contribution to Indian tennis was lauded. Bopanna will have a lot of friends and family members in the stands, which can accommodate about 1,300 people. Ideally, as Bopanna had requested, his farewell tie should have been hosted in Benglauru, which has much better infrastructure and can accommodate 6,500 spectators.

An evening of tributes and togetherness...😍🇮🇳🎾

We honoured the Legendary Rohan Bopanna for his remarkable career, shared memorable moments with our Davis Cup team and our incredible Women's team for the upcoming Asian Games...❤️ #AITAFeliciation #TennisLegends pic.twitter.com/ovNzbJ99T3

— All India Tennis Association (@AITA__Tennis) September 14, 2023

Sumit Nagal in good touch India’s number one singles player, Sumit Nagal, is in good form. He is entering the tie after playing the final of a Challenger event in Austria. It was his third final of the season at that level. Unless there is an inexplicable meltdown, he would win two points for India. Sasi Mukund will finally get to make his debut. He was named in the team even for the tie against Pakistan back in 2019 but pulled out, saying he had suffered a foot injury. Digvijay Pratap Singh has also made the cut, and he might get to play a dead rubber. Hot and humid conditions will pose a serious fitness test for both teams. Though the timings have been revised and the start of the matches has been delayed by two hours, it will still be a tough task to negate the energy-sapping conditions. Morocco has only one worthy challenger for India’s singles players, Elliot Benchetrit. The 24-year-old 6'4" tall player might be ranked just 465 on the ATP singles chart as of today, but he touched a career-high 198 in February 2020. Benchetrit has cherished wins against top-100 players, including one against a top-50 player, and has competed at the biggest stage – the Grand Slams – too. Out of the two Indian singles players, Mukund has played and beaten him. They clashed in January 2022 at the Forli Challenger, where the Indian emerged victorious in two sets. If at all there will be some fight, it will be against Benchetrit, who qualified for the US Open in 2019 and Australian Open in 2020, beating quality players such as Emil Ruusuvuori of Finland on the way. He had entered the French Open as a wild card in 2018 and took a set off Frenchman Gael Monfils before losing the opening round. The visiting team’s second singles player is 20-year-old Yassine Dlimi, ranked 557. He is still plying his trade on the ITF Futures circuit. Adam Moundir is further behind at 779, and the remaining two players – Walid Ahouda and Younes Lalami Laaroussi – do not figure even in the top-1000. Given the weak opponents, winning this tie won’t be much of a challenge for India but chalking out a roadmap for the future will be. Serious soul-searching needed Captain Rajpal and AITA officials need to sit and discuss what is wrong with the system that India does not have a single top-100 singles player, and the team is now fighting it out in World Group II. There are a lot of questions that need answers and some serious soul searching. Unless India have quality singles players, the country will not excel either in Davis Cup or Grand Slams.

All for One, One for All...🎾🇮🇳

From the @DavisCup to the #AsianGames , our journey begins...✅

Say hello to the Champions...😍🙋#DavisCupPracticeSession #AsianGamesCamp #Lucknow pic.twitter.com/KpZOk3wajE

— All India Tennis Association (@AITA__Tennis) September 12, 2023

Tennis remains an individual and professional sport but it’s time that AITA comes up with something special to save the game from plunging to new lows. ‘It’s like just another tournament for players’: Bopanna Someone who willingly tweaked his own game to adjust to the styles of legendary Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi while playing for the country, Rohan Bopanna often gets baffled to find the love of playing Davis Cup diminishing with passage of time. Bopanna does not find the current lot as passionate about playing the Davis Cup compared to players from past generations. “It has become too mechanical to just come, play and leave,” says Bopanna who is set to quit Davis Cup this coming Sunday. A bit agitated, he feels Davis Cup has become just another tournament for the current generation of players. On the other side, Davis Cup is one tournament where it is believed across the globe that rankings won’t matter every time. Even the tiny tennis nations sometimes succeed in flooring the behemoths. And that belief came from the team unity, proper planning and passionate support coming from the bench and the teammates who would shout their hearts out to support the player on the court from the sidelines. “There used to be fantastic team atmosphere, which has been kind of lost in the last couple of years. And we need to bring that back,” Bopanna told PTI in an interview. “Davis Cup is all about team camaraderie, spending time with the team, being together, everybody coming together. And I think that is a little missing link. We need to bring it back to have a successful team.” Bopanna, who made his debut in 2002, spoke his mind on the current state of affairs in the side but even he does not know how the team has reached this point. He struggles to find an appropriate answer but tries to make sense of the situation. “There’s no particular reason why it’s happened. I think, in a way, it is just ourselves trying to find each other, you know, understand that the (ATP) Tour is different, Davis Cup is different.” Camaraderie is missing “I have a feeling tennis has become more like a job, not only in the Davis Cup, but in general everybody comes, plays the matches, goes. 30 weeks they travel, they have their own coach, their own physio and everything. “When I came into the team, it did not matter who (players) had what differences. In the locker room, that camaraderie was there, no matter what. That is missing.” “Everybody is just focussed on what they need to do (for themselves) and not really figuring out what is (the) best scenario for the team.” Bopanna has played with both Paes and Bhupathi in his career, which will end with his 33rd tie on Sunday. He actually grew up in their shadow and had to wait for a long time to be the leader of the side in terms of bringing experience to the table. He paired with Paes seven times in Davis Cup and shared the court with Bhupathi on two occasions. ‘Playing with Paes, Bhupathi extremely different’ Talking about those days, Bopanna said playing with the two legends was “extremely different.” “I had to adapt myself to play with anyone on any side… see what I can bring in. With Leander, I would set up in the net, play that kind of style when he could come to his best. With Mahesh, we would play with a lot of power, both our returns went very quickly. Mahesh had a big first serve. “When you are trying to play different combinations, you are constantly learning, how can I match up to this person. I have always played with somebody who has played big tennis. “So, with Leander, I had to unlearn a lot of things to get back and play with him. That was also difficult because I was not used to a lot of things, the chip return, the lob return.” Ask Bopanna what did he learn from them and it again came to team unity. “The number one thing I learned from these two is fighting till the last point, keep your differences aside and when you are playing for the country, bring in 200 per cent. Both of them brought that.” Bopanna won’t say that it becomes easy to say ‘no’ to playing for India. “I don’t feel so (but) the love of playing Davis Cup is missing. That is why they haven’t been there and don’t probably understand. They just look it as another tournament. The Davis Cup atmosphere… is why at 43, I’m coming out to play, is what changed my life.” Bopanna said communication with the players is key. Tennis will remain an individual sport but still talking to players, listening to their issues is the key going forward. “I still want to be very much involved in tennis, because I communicate with all the players all the time. I’m constantly asking them, their calendar, what they’re doing, what they’re playing."