Davis Cup: India Lose Both Singles Matches, Trail 0-2 Against Finland

India’s Davis Cup tie against Finland got off to a losing start on the indoor hard courts of the Espoo Metro Areena in Finland. Prajnesh Gunneswaran lost to a lower-ranked player in the Davis Cup while Ramkumar Ramanathan went down fighting in the second singles as India trailed 0-2 in the World Group I tie against Finland, at Espoo on Friday.

Up against Otto Virtanen, ranked as low as 419 in the ATP ranking chart, the 165th ranked Prajnesh lost 3-6 6-7(1) in just one hour 25 minutes.

Ramkumar, ranked 187, presented a good fight but lost 4-6 5-7 to Finland’s number one player, Emil Ruusuvuori, who is ranked 74th.

After dropping his serve in the sixth game, Ramkumar got the break back immediately, playing smartly. He often charged the net to surprise his opponent, getting some good points.

However, he went down 0-40 in the 10th game while serving to stay in the set and lost it when he hit a backhand wide.

Ruusuvuori countered Ramkumar’s strategy of chip and charge easily in the second set, hitting a few passing winners. The home player even got a breakpoint in the fourth game but Ramkumar saved that to stay on serve.

The Finnish player raised his game post 5-5 scoreline as he started to add more power to his game and strokes.

He hit a splendid cross-court winner at 40-40 to earn his first match point but Ramkumar kept his cool and saved that by dispatching a winner in open court from close the net.

However, the Indian served a double fault soon to hand Ruusuvuori his second and the Finland player converted that with a backhand passing winner.

Rohan Bopanna and Divij Sharan now must win the doubles match to keep India alive.

Source: PTI