Ramkumar Ramanthan scored a fluent win after Yuki Bhambri eked out a straight set victory to hand India a commanding 2-0 lead against New Zealand on the opening day of the Asia/Oceania Group I Davis Cup tie, here on Friday.
Yuki was far from his best but still managed a 6-4, 6-4, 6-3 win over Finn Tearney in the first singles while Ramkumar was impressive in his 6-3, 6-4, 6-3 over Jose Statham in the second singles. Veteran leander Paes, eyeing a world record 43 doubles wins in the Davis Cup history, will now play along side national hard court champion Vishnu Vardhan on Saturday to seal the tie for the hosts. Both the Kiwi players — Tearney (414) and Statham (417) — are ranked outside top-400 but the pair of Michael Venus and Artem Sitak are much exprienced doubles players and are likely to pose a strong challenge to the Indians on Saturday.
Ramkumar clinched the opening set in just half hour with one service break in the fourth game that put him 3-1 up.
Holding a 3-1 lead, he was in some trouble at 30-30 in the next game after his first double-fault but fought immediately back with another ace before taking a 4-1 lead.
And then seized the moment when serving for the set at 5-3, Ramukumar served hard and true to take the set with his third ace of the match.
The Indian, in fact, had to save three break-points in the second set after trailing 0-40 on serve, after committing his second double-fault in the fourth game and saved the last with his fourth ace of the match. The pressure was too much for the Kiwi to handle and he promptly served his first double fault and dropped his serve to help Ramkumar go 4-3 ahead and then 5-3 by holding his serve with some difficulty. Statham held his serve before Ramkumar served out the 10th game at 30, serving aces no 7 and 8, the last one at set-point to take a 2-0 lead in the match.
Ramkumar's aces saved him from being broken by his rival three times before he broke Statham's serve in the fifth game with the help of some excellent service returns and errors committed by the New Zealander.
later, he again broke the Kiwi in the ninth game when at 30-40 Statham buried his forehand into the tape of the net to drop the set and the match.
Earlier, Yuki won the first set in 47 minutes after trailing 1-3 and then won four games in a row to lead 5-3, the decisive break coming in the seventh game.
Although Tearney held serve to stay in the set, the Indian served out the 10th game at with a forehand winner to pocket the opening set. Yuki was down 0-2 in the second set but recovered quickly to take a 2-0 lead before dominating the third set and winning it with two breaks of serve as his rival's game went to pieces on the hard court at the Shiv Chatrapati sports complex in Balewadi.
The Indian started brilliantly with a service break but then dropped serve twice, after lapsing into errors, to lag behind Tearney and then got control of his play, albeit he committed mistakes at times. later in the set he started serving well and also hit some excellent returns of serve to put pressure on his rival.
Bhambri served a timely first ace followed by a forehand winner deep into the rival's court to hold serve for a 5-3 lead and then, after Tearney managed to stay alive in the set he could not stop the Indian from racing away to the opening set backed by some notable serves. The Indian then started on the wrong foot by dropping his serve early to trail 0-2 but like in the first set fought back immediately to restore parity by breaking his rival's serve in the third when the Kiwi buried his backhand into the net. With order restored, Bhambri broke his rival's serve in the fifth game when Tearney double faulted and then held serve to take a handy 4-2 lead. In the third set, Bhambri, put pressure on his rival's serve immediately and had a match-point when the New Zealander mishit a forehand. And he came up withan excellent return of serve followed by a forehand down-the-line to clinch the match.