Kolkata: Italy beat India 3-1 to enter the main round of Davis Cup Tennis
Kolkata, Feb 2 (IBNS): Italy moved into the main round of the Davis Cup tennis as they beat India 3-1 on the second day of the qualifier held at Calcutta South Club grass courts here Saturday.
After both Ramkumar Ramanathan and Prjnesh Gunneswaran lost their matches in the first two singles against Andreas Seppi and Mattio Berrittini respectively on Friday, Indian doubles pair Rohan Bopanna and Divij Sharan raised some hope for the hosts this morning as they came from behind to beat Italian duo of Mattio Berrittini and Simone Bolleli 4/6, 6/3 and 6/4.
But in the first of the reverse singles, India’s Gunneswaran failed to live up to the expectation and cheaply lost to Andreas Seppi 6/1 and 6/4 providing an unassailable lead to Italy.
India will now have to play and win a qualifier again for advancing into the final round of Davis Cup.
The Italians on Saturday started from where they ended and won the tight first set of the doubles match breaking Bopanna’s service in the nineth game.
But the never say die Indbegan, with dogged determination, in the second set and with some fine returns broke Italy in the 4th game and held their services to win the set 6/3.
Stung by the reverse, Italy went all out in the third set and forced a break in the 4th game to go 3-1 up in the set.
But the Indian pair combined well and broke back Italy’s service in the very next game.
Inspired after forcing the break both Bopanna and Sharan displayed fine form to break Italy again in the nineth game and held their won in the next to win the doubles in 103 minutes.
The victory in the doubles brought some hope to the Indian supporters, many of whom were waiting to see a repeat of earlier Davis Cup qualifying matches, where India after trailing 0-2, finally over came the challenges 3-2.
But that was not to be as 34 th ranked experienced Seppi broke Gunneswaran twice in the first set to win it 6-1 in 20 minutes.
The second set saw Gunneswaran putting up a brave fight which, however, was not enough to make any mark on the Italian who forced a break in the third game and win the second set 6/4 in 42 minutes.
(Reporting by Manik Baanerjee)
Image Credit: Avishek Mitra/ IBNS
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