By Admin 
Swiss captain Severin Luthi
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement
Indian tennis has not had it this good in Davis Cup for decades. To beat Switzerland, the land of Roger Federer and Stan Wawrinka, with all its higher-ranked players, in front of their fans in Biel, was an incredible achievement by the Indian team.
In fact, captain Rohit Rajpal noted that this win was only after the 1993 victory over France in Frejus, for an Indian team to triumph in Europe.
“It is a dream come true. We are really happy. We got here early, and the team did a lot of work. Davis Cup is tough. Am extremely happy with the boys. They did a lot of hard work, played very well, and kept their level up,” said Rajpal, after India secured a 3-1 victory on Saturday in the two-day tie.
The captain of the Swiss team, Severin Luthi was wholesome in his praise of India’s performance, and only regretted the point that the home team did not find a way to make it 1-1 on the first day.
“First of all, credit to Indian team. They really pushed hard. They seemed to be very committed and had a lot of fire in playing for their country. They did a good job. My only regret is that we could not do a better job on the first day. At 1-1, there is more possibility to win the tie,” he said.
The 626th ranked Dhakshineswar Suresh had given a dream start for India by beating the Swiss No.1 in straight sets, and the team capitalised on the momentum.
The Swiss captain revealed that the team’s No.1 player Jerome Kym had hurt his calf in that first match, and he could not have risked playing him if he was not fit.
“We had a chance with Henry Bernet. Unfortunately, Sumit played a good match. Henry was a bit tight, which is normal in his first Davis Cup match. We tried our best, no regrets on that,” said Luthi.
Sriram Balaji took the blame on himself for not firing his first serves when the team was leading 3-2 in the decider against Jakub Paul and Dominic Stricker. He did recall losing a close match to the same team in the ATP event in Gstaad in July (4-6, 7-6(8), 7-10).
“We were in a winning position at 4-4 in the second set. Later, at 3-2 in the third set, we gave them a few second serves, and they hit three return winners. First serves could have changed the game,” observed Sriram Balaji, about the close 7-6(3), 4-6, 5-7 loss in the doubles.
“We had the chance to get the win. We didn’t play our best, but competed hard. They played the important points better. We could not get the job done.,” conceded Rithvik Bollipalli.
Captain Rohit Rajpal hoped to carry on the momentum into the Davis Cup Qualifier next year.
“When we know who we play, we will prepare equally hard, and see if we can take things further,” he said.
The 13 winning teams from World Group-1 will join the other teams already in the Qualifiers pool, and have a two-round knock-out draw next year, to identify the seven teams progressing to the Finals.