The Hindu : Sport / Tennis : Leander comes to India's rescue again

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Apr 10, 2004

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Sport - Tennis

Leander comes to India's rescue again

OSAKA, APRIL 9. Leander Paes may not have played a Tour singles match for ages. He's grown older; his reflexes may be fading. His step perhaps less assured. But when he's playing in the Davis Cup, you back off from making any brash predictions about the outcome of his matches. Even if he's set to face a player like Takao Suzuki. In a cold, rational world, Suzuki with a world ranking of 206, might beat the Indian easily.

But then again, this was the Davis Cup. And, a pumped-up Paes romped past Suzuki in four sets (6-3, 7-5, 3-6, 6-4) as India and Japan split honours at the end of day one of their Davis Cup Asia/Oceania Group I tie here on Friday.

Japan - coached by the renowned Aussie Bob Brett, who counts Boris Becker among his former pupils - had earlier taken a 1-0 lead, after Goichi Motomura overcame a sluggish start to defeat Prakash Amritraj 4-6, 6-1, 6-2, 6-4 at the Utsubo Tennis Centre.

With this win, the 30 year-old Motomura goes up 21-11 in Davis Cup rubbers.

Motomura won the first game of the match and then lost the next five before staging a slow recovery. He lost the first set, but took the next three to give his team just the winning start it was looking for.

"I've played a lot of five set matches recently," Motomura said. "You can't get too down on yourself if you lose the first set and I told myself to battle back.

"It took me a while to adjust to the mood; I started to feel better midway through the first set."

Up two sets to one, Motomura broke Amritraj's serve to go up 5-4 in the fourth set. He then served out to win the match in two hours and 21 minutes.

"To break his serve and go up 5-4 was huge," said Motomura. "We really wanted to win this first match and start things off on the right foot."

India, however, bounced right back after Paes, the Indian captain, defeated Suzuki in the second singles match of the day. The last two times the teams met - in Tokyo (2002) and Delhi (2003) - Paes had won all his three matches each time; and he didn't look like spoiling that record.

On a semi-fast hard court where the bounce was a little low, Paes adjusted quickly, and looked well on his way to a straight sets win after taking the first two sets easily. Suzuki, however, came back strongly in the third set to take it 6-3.

Any hopes Japan might have harboured of running up a 2-0 lead were dispelled when Paes broke serve to go up 5-4 in the fourth set. He sealed victory for the Indians with a spectacular forehand.

Thailand takes lead

World No. 12 ranked Paradorn Srichaphan recovered from a first set loss to overcome Uzbekistan's Dmitri Mazur and ensure Thailand took a 2-0 lead in Bangkok. Earlier, Danai Udomchoke beat Vadim Kutsenko in three straight sets.

Serving the fourth set at 5-3, Paradorn was handed the victory easily as Mazur lobbed three shots out.

South Korea dominates

Chung Hee-seok and Kim Young-jun snatched straight set wins to give South Korea a 2-0 lead over Lebanon at Busan.

Chung opened the South Korean charge, defeating Will Farah-Lebar 6-2, 6-2, 6-1 at the Geumjeong Tennis Stadium. In the second match, Kim claimed a hard-fought win over Patrick Chucri 7-6(5), 7-6 (4), 6-1.

China 2-0 up

China shot to a 2-0 lead against Kuwait on the first day of their Davis Cup tie in the eastern Chinese city of Nanjing. Chinese ace Zhu Benqiang downed Kuwait's top player Mohamamed Khaliq Siddiq in straight sets, 6-0, 6-4, 7-5, to give China its first victory in the three-day meeting.

The results (Asia-Oceania, Group I second round):

At Osaka: India 1, Japan 1 (Goichi Motomura (Jap) bt Prakash Amritraj (Ind) 4-6, 6-1, 6-2, 6-4;

Leander Paes (Ind) bt Takao Suzuki (Jap) 6-3, 7-5, 3-6, 6-4).

At Bangkok: Thailand 2, Uzbekistan 0 (Danai Udomchoke bt Vadim Kutsenko 7-6(4), 6-4, 6-3;

Paradorn Srichaphan bt Dmitri Mazur 4-6, 7-5, 7-5, 6-3).

Group II: At Busan: South Korea 2, Lebanon 0 (Chung Hee-seok bt Will Farah-Lebar 6-2, 6-2, 6-1; Kim Young-jun bt Patrick Chucri 7-6(5), 7-6(4), 6-1).

At Nanjing: China 2, Kuwait 0 (Zhu Benqiang bt Mohamamed Khaliq Siddiq 6-0, 6-4, 7-5; Zeng Shaoxuan bt Mohammed Al Ghareeb 7-6(5), 6-7(5) (retd.).

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