The Hindu : Sport : Prakash and Harsh complete whitewash

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Mar 07, 2005

Sport

Sport

Prakash and Harsh complete whitewash

By Kamesh Srinivasan

CRACK UNIT: Mahesh Bhupathi, Prakash Amritraj, Leander Paes and Harsh Mankad pose with the Tricolour after routing China in the Davis Cup tie on Sunday. — Photo: S. Subramanium

NEW DELHI, MARCH 6. Prakash Amritraj and Harsh Mankad proved too good for the Chinese once again as the Indian team wound up its Davis Cup campaign with a 5-0 margin in the Asia-Oceania group `I' tie at the R. K. Khanna Stadium here on Sunday.

The 21-year-old Prakash, who happened to be on court on all the three days despite playing only singles, served and volleyed with authority to overwhelm the Chinese No. 1 Sun Peng 6-2, 6-4 in 56 minutes.

Harsh faced a few breakpoints but dropped serve only once as he served well under pressure to beat Lu Hao — who came in place of Wang Yu Jr. — 6-2, 6-3 in an hour and 10 minutes.

It was a superb performance by Prakash who dropped serve only once in five sets spread over two matches. Quite impressively, Prakash conceded only 10 points on his serve in the whole match today. He broke the Chinese in the third and fifth games of the first set and in the third game of the second to cruise to victory. Prakash had eight aces and 11 volley winners to speak for his prowess on grass.

Peng, who played much better than the score suggests, slammed four aces, three service winners and five volley winners. However, as he himself admitted, "I played well, but Prakash played very well.''

"You understand only when you win. It is so different to what someone tells you. It was important for me to hold serve and I am glad with the quality of tennis that I played in this tie. I dropped serve only once in two matches and that is a good sign for me,'' said Prakash.

Breaks galore

In comparison, Harsh was not all that authoritative against the fourth member of the Chinese team, who has a 2-0 record in Davis Cup after winning both his matches against the Philippines. Harsh was, however, solid and broke Lu Hao in the sixth and eighth games of the first set. He continued in the same vein, breaking the Chinese in the second game of the second set.

Harsh had to save breakpoints in the fifth game of the first set and in the first and third games of the second, but a netted volley saw him drop serve in the fifth game.

There was no need to pull the alarm bell as Harsh broke back promptly at love and served out the match without further hiccups.

"The idea was to play solid rather than hit winners. Once I got the lead, I was able to open the shoulders and hit a few shots,'' said Harsh, who adapted well to the conditions.

Captain Leander Paes said it would have been difficult for him to convince any other skipper to drop him from singles, but said that everything was done with the team's interest in mind.

"The boys need to keep improving the whole year so that they are ready. I couldn't have asked for anything better from them. They didn't drop a set and played to their potential,'' said Leander.

Though Leander suggested that he would be happy to play only the doubles in Davis Cup, he sounded confident about being physically fit for five sets of singles when he played regular doubles on the Tour.

The Chinese captain Xie Zhao said that for some reason the team was not able to get the grass court shoes, which played a big part in the team's defeat. So even the Chinese, who are getting ready to top the medals table at the Beijing Olympics in 2008, do make crucial mistakes.

The Indian team will now get ready for a home tie next month — most probably in Kolkata — against Indonesia.

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