Indian tennis team looking to start afresh

The Indian Davis Cup team is looking to start afresh putting behind it the issues that plagued the team and the results that didn't go its way especially the thrashing it received at the hands of Sweden last year. The Indian team lost 4-0 in its Davis Cup World Group 1 tie against Sweden played on the indoor hard courts of the Royal Tennis Hall in Stockholm last September.

The Indian team gets ready to hit the courts again as it faces Togo in a World Group I Play-offs tie at New Delhi's RK Khanna Stadium on February 1-2. The hosts will be without Sumit Nagal after the 27-year-old made himself unavailable for the contest. To add to this, the hosts have little info on the visitors and will watch the Togo players in practice to figure out their strengths and weaknesses.

Speaking to The Tribune, Davis Cup captain Rohit Rajpal exuded confidence despite the lack of info about the opponents. "Strangely, we are not able to get much data on these guys, they arrived today to practise so we will try to do this physically," he said.

So how does one get the players match ready? "It's a short window of 10 days that we get, we try to get them match sharp in these 10 days. Then comes strategy, who plays against which opponent, that will happen this weekend itself. We will have some people watching these guys and taking some notes, and then in the team meetings discuss how to go about it," he said.

Team member S Mukund said the "rough year" made the team realise that "we need to get back to the drawing board". "It was definitely a very rough year in terms of national duty for every player. Everybody felt the turbulence. It happens nearly with every team — shedding the skin to get better. It was high time, whatever happened, happened for the right reasons. It showed us we need to get back to the drawing board and get more depth. Still lot of issues not sorted out like we do not have players — Yuki (Bhambri) and Sumit have opted out; obviously, they don't feel super comfortable in the ambience," Mukund said.

"I would lie if I said it felt good last year. For me even as an onlooker to see all that was going on, it was very unfortunate and tough," he added.

On the Togo tie, he said: "It is very difficult to say, in the Davis Cup, lots can happen. We don't know much about them, the best we can do is to try and get ourselves ready to the best of our ability."

Senior team member Ramkumar Ramanathan said anything can happen in the Davis Cup. "Playing in our own country, we will have the crowd behind us; that will help a lot. This is a very good advantage. We have a very good team, we are ready — the captain is there, the coach and physios are helping us. End of the day you have to play to your strengths and not worry too much about your opponents," he said.

Rajpal summed it up for the hosts, saying, "Been a difficult year, it is a brutal game and we are used to it but hoping 2025 will be a better year."