Somdev Devvarman proved to be India’s hero on Day 1 of the Davis Cup World Group Playoff against top ranked Czech Republic at the RK Khanna Stadium in New Delhi on Friday.
Devvarman playing the second match of the day pulled India back to make the tie 1-1 after Yuki Bhambri had lost his match earlier.
The 30-year-old Somdev made ‘light’ work of his World No. 40 opponent Jiri Vesley on a humid day in a 7-6, 6-4, 6-3 victory. Even though the match was over in straight sets, the battle between the two was fierce with the match running for two hours and 43 minutes.
In a topsy-turvy year for Devvarman, his spectacular serving couldn’t have come at a better time after Yuki’s tame 2-6, 1-6, 5-7 loss in the morning to World No. 84 lukas Rosol.
Such was the competitive nature of the tussle between Somdev and leftie Vesley that their first two games took nearly half an hour.
With the win, Somdev continued his brilliant run in Delhi where he’s not lost since 2010 during which he’s won two Challenger titles and a Commonwealth Games gold medal. And with the loss, Vesley continued his abysmal run in the Davis Cup where he’s not won a live rubber before.
Throughout the week and even in their selection of Delhi as a venue, the Indian Davis Cup team was banking on the heat and humidity to play its part. And it did play its part but flirted with clouds and light breeze in the middle.
The humidity and the long rallies took their toll to desired effect on Vesley who admitted that after 3-4 games, his energy was sapped and he was finding it hard to play his natural game.
Somdev, known to be able to play the long matches and run around the court, did exactly just that on Friday much to Vesley’s displeasure. Serving on the deuce court, Devvarman’s wide serve was in full flow as he finished with 20 aces. later Somdev acknowledged that this was probably his best service match of his career. He didn’t stop with just that as he had 65 winners to his name picking up balls on his forehand, backhand and numerous times pushing the ball past Vesley as the Czech tried to catch the Indian off guard from much behind the baseline.
The first three games between Somdev and Jiri pushed both players to all parts of the court with seven break point opportunities squandered between the two (four by Somdev and three by Vesley). Post that, the set remained on serve with both players holding with relative ease.
In the tiebreak, Somdev proved the aggressive of the two hitting an ace, a down the line winner and forcing Vesley to make errors to wrap up the first set.
Somdev’s numbers after the first did the entire talking. A player who had lost to a player outside the top 400 in a Challenger earlier this year, had spread 32 winners and 11 aces in the first set alone.
Second set started with Vesley breaking Somdev even though the latter saved two break points.
However, Vesley didn’t make the most of this advantage. In the sixth game, Vesley double faulted at 15-40 to bring the match level.
At 4-4, Somdev had to fight his way out of a long and arduous game in which he served four aces and multiple winners with the game being stretched to five deuces.
Needing to hold serve, Vesley again faltered on break point with yet another double fault. The 6’5 Czech player saved two double faults at 15-40 but he couldn’t save the third.
In the third set, Somdev again earned himself two break points but needed only one to convert from a forehand winner and take a 4-1 lead. Upon that it was matter of time before Somdev closed out the contest and threw his racket in the air in jubilation.
Earlier Rosol made it an easy task of Delhi boy Yuki in less than two hours.
Even though the sun played hide and seek with the humidity nozzle notched high, Bhambri’s game did little to bother Rosol who is famous for having beaten Rafael Nadal at the 2012 Wimbledon.
The gap between the two was tremendous and showed with Rosol’s serve proving to be unreturnable. The Czech served 11 aces and won 76% of his first serve points. To make matters worse for Yuki, he served disappointingly and was broken four times in a row.
Yuki eventually put up a fight in the third set. In the third game, Bhambri bagged two break points and converted on the very first go as Rosol’s backhand went wide.
But in the sixth game, Bhambri gave the advantage back. At 30-30, Bhambri hit a double fault to give Rosol a way back and he took it — however luckily. Yuki’s forehand hit the top of the net and fell kindly for Rosol to put away.
Yuki had a chance to prolong the match at 5-5 with five break points overall but Rosol produced five aces to quash Bhambri’s hopes.
Serving to stay in it, Bhambri’s forehand met the net and gave Czech’s a positive start.
In the first set, the pair started by holding serve comfortably till 2-2. In this span, Rosol had begun with consistent first serves of 200kmph which expectedly went unreturned. To counter this, it was necessary for Yuki to hold his forth but a forehand hitting the tape in the fifth game gave Rosol the first break of the match after a gorgeous cross court winner.
In Yuki's next service game, he made two errors to hand another break of serve. At 30-30, he hit a routine smash long and with his back against the ball, he double faulted.
Finding himself in the driving seat, Rosol continued to serve big including a 169kmph second serve to clinch the first.
Second set was even more routine than the first. Two backhand errors by Yuki gave Rosol the chance to start well and on the next point another unforced error of the backhand gave Czechs a 1-0 lead in the second.
In his next service game and down 0-2, Yuki faced four break points and saved three with a winner, a smash, and forcing Rosol to make an error but couldn’t save the fourth with the Czech player moving forward after solid groundstrokes and then volleying into open court.
In the next game, Yuki had a chance to break back but he couldn’t convert either of the two opportunities that came his way.
Amidst all this, the real contest happening at the RK Khanna Stadium turned out to be between the two sets of spectators. The Czech supporters would yell “lukas Rosol” which would be countered with “Jeetega bhai jeetega India jeetega!” which was possibly more out of usage of the expression than it holding any truth going by the proceedings.
Now it is leander Paes and Rohan Bopanna’s turn to push the tie in India’s favour as they take on Radek Stepanek and Adam Pavlasek in the doubles rubber today.
The Indian pair were seen practicing after the singles matches were wrapped up for the day with Saketh Myneni also involved. Watching on and guiding was India’s Davis Cup coach Zeeshan Ali.