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India lose opening singles

Shailesh Soni

India were down 0-2 on a rain-ravaged opening day of the Davis Cup World Group qualifying match against Sweden after losing both the singles matches.

In the opening match young debutant Harsh Mankad was crushed by Andreas Vinciguerra, who was also making his Davis Cup debut, 3-6, 1-6, 1-6, and later Mikael Tillstrom thrashed Prahlad Srinath 6-2, 6-0, 6-1.

Harsh was a bit nervous at the start, dropping serve in the first game and falling behind 0-2. However, he regained his composure later. He broke Vinciguera once, but was broken a couple more times to lose the set 3-6.

The young Indian started the second set well, breaking Vinciguera in the very first game, but was returned the compliment in the next game itself. Then he had Vinciguera in a bit of trouble, having to serve deuces in game 3, but the Swede held - after throwing his racket and getting a bit rattled.

At this point (6-3,1-2) Harsh was looking good. But then came the rain and a delay for about 90 minutes. On resumption, Vinciguera kept attacking Harsh's backhand and the Indian just couldn't handle it. He dropped six serves of the next seven games to lose the match in 35 more minutes.

The youngster Vinciguerra may be just getting out of his teens, but he has already made a mark on the ATP circuit. In contrast, Harsh Mankad is a year older to Vinciguerra, but is still travelling on the Satellite circuit.

The difference was indeed startling, but to Mankad`s credit, he didn`t let it bother him very much. The fact that he was playing against a top-50 player in the world may have flashed across his mind, but Mankad, ranked 545 to Vinciguerra`s 42, didn`t dwell on such mundane matters. He knew that they were both debutants and that he was the underdog, yet he gave it all he could, and it must be said that the slippery surface, due to the rains, as also the slow nature of clay proved to be his undoing.

In the doubles match on Saturday, Mahesh Bhupathi and Syed Fazaluddin will face Nicolas Kulti and Mikael Tillstrom.