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Rohan Bopanna at South Club Sunday. Picture by Santosh Ghosh | Calcutta:
The celebrations hardly matched the resounding nature of victory. Three matches
had been won on the final day with not a set conceded to New Zealand, but it seemed
as if it was a pre-ordained verdict. The focus was more on the future. Now
that India have again qualified for the Davis Cup World Group play-off round,
will Ramesh Krishnan’s team be fourth time lucky? “It
all depends on who we play, hopefully we’ll have a good draw this time,” quipped
Ramesh. India have had anything but a decent draw in their three previous trips
to the play-off stage. They met three Davis Cup powerhouses in their backyard
— Sweden in 2000, the US in 2001 and Australia in 2002 — and were beaten convincingly
every time. “The chances are better for a home
tie this time… for example we’ll be hosts if we draw the US, Britain, Czech Republic
or Brazil,” Ramesh said. “We’ll have to keep fingers crossed till the draw is
made (later this month in London).” The eight first-round
losers of the 2003 World Group competition — the US, Germany, Britain, the Netherlands,
Czech Republic, Brazil, Belgium and Romania — will be joined by eight zonal qualifiers
in the World Group play-off stage. The eight strongest
teams of that group of 16 will be seeded. The Indians won’t make the top eight
and will have to face one of the better teams. The
captain observed that Rohan Bopanna had improved in the last two months. “Today
he raised his game a notch… overall he played better than he did against Japan
in Delhi. But he has to sit down and think where he can improve. Yesterday was
a near winnable match which he lost out,” remarked Ramesh. Bopanna
admitted he had a tough time erasing the Hunt loss from memory. “I couldn’t sleep
well last night as the match kept coming back my mind… This morning I felt it
was a fresh day and readied myself for a fresh start,” Bopanna said. “I
concentrated much more today and made sure didn’t make silly mistakes like yesterday…
the captain, Leander and Mahesh all encouraged me to play my own game.” This
was the second time he had avoided the opposition No. 1 in the fourth rubber.
“I was a bit lucky that way but it’s still good to have pulled off two live rubbers
which sealed both ties for the country,” Bopanna said. Paes
said he woke up this morning ready for any eventuality. “I was mentally prepared
for a deciding fifth rubber against Hunt… but Rohan did well and wrapped it up
for us.” As for the doubles, Paes was happy that
he and Bhupathi got the job done professionally after some early jitters. “We
didn’t start very well and almost went two breaks down… those things shouldn’t
happen.” Bhupathi admitted there were a bit of
nerves in the beginning. “It was my first match of the tie whereas Leander had
already played singles… that’s why I took some time to settle down.” The
reunion topic Paes avoided questions on reuniting
with Bhupathi at the press conference but later told The Telegraph: “There’s
no question (of a reunion) now as I am committed to David Rikl for the entire
year. As for the future, I haven’t given it any thought yet.” Earlier
Bhupathi was asked whether he would respond to Sourav Ganguly’s request to reunite
with Paes. “We’ve had a talk but no decision has been taken.” Paes’
hint was clear: no serious talk on the subject had taken place. | 
