The Hindu : Sport : India is well prepared: Leander

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Thursday, Apr 28, 2005

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India is well prepared: Leander

Kamesh Srinivasan

- PHOTO: RAJEEV BHATT

WHEN PUSH COMES TO SHOVE: Leander Paes is the man India always looks up to in tough situations.

JAIPUR: He was focussing hard on his singles game, tackling the youthful exuberance of Karan Rastogi. It was quite understandable when Leander Paes blew his top and slammed a couple of balls out of sight on being disturbed by the over-enthusiastic spectators. He even called for a barricade to be put around the practice facility so that people could not move in and out as they wished.

The 31-year-old Leander, who takes his job as a captain a lot more seriously than anyone would have visualised at this stage in his career, spent the better part of the afternoon helping Harsh Mankad and Prakash Amritraj fine-tune their games.

There was not much time left before the Uzbeks arrived for their turn to practice and that was the reason Leander was keen to make optimum use of the available time.

The discordant notes apart, Leander looked quite sharp and ready to face the challenge from the strong young men from Uzbekistan, who are novices compared to his rich experience. For the Uzbeks, this is only the second Davis Cup tie in a fledgling career.

As luck would have it, the Uzbeks — who were surprised to see Leander working on his singles game — saw their practice schedule in the evening upset within minutes by a heavy dust-storm, followed by thundershowers and gusts of wind that threatened to blow away the roof of the temporary stands.

It has been raining here regularly for the past few days and the staff preparing the court are upset that the sun has been unable to break through the grass layer and dry the ground underneath.

Lucky venue

"The grass courts here have always been to my advantage,'' said Leander, quite pleased to come into the tie with good rhythm and immense confidence after back-to-back doubles titles in Monte Carlo and Barcelona in the past fortnight.

Leander does not need much time to find his timing on grass, especially when it tends to misbehave.

He had beaten Wayne Ferreira and Grant Stafford against South Africa on these courts in 1994. In 1996, he defeated Dutchman Jan Siemerink in four sets, winning all his three sets in tie-breakers.

The way Leander teased Paradorn Srichaphan of Thailand, when the Thai was breaking into the big league, on these courts in the semifinals of a Challenger on way to the title in 1999 is still fresh in memory.

Ferreira and Srichaphan are class players on grass and Leander did not drop a set against them.

The question now is whether the Indian captain would be fair to himself and the team while making the appropriate choice of fielding two singles players from the available three.

It is well known that the hero of the Indian triumph over the Dutch in 1996, Mahesh Bhupathi, who won both his singles matches then, does not play singles any more.

Different ballgame

"The whole team has come well prepared,'' Leander said, as he praised both Harsh and Prakash on their good run in recent weeks. Though he himself mentioned about Harsh losing two matches to Denis Isotmin this season, he felt that the Davis Cup scenario was different and past record would not have any bearing on this contest.

Uzbek captain, Vadim Kutsenko, seemed convinced that Leander would not play the singles, but conceded that it would be tough for his team to tackle the Indians on grass.

"We would have liked to play on clay, especially against India,'' said Kutsenko, even as he vehemently countered the argument that the big game of the Uzbeks may actually hurt the seasoned opponents on grass.

The Indian camp has respect for the Uzbeks and would do well to not over-estimate its own ability.

The draw would be made on Thursday at the residence of Yoonus Khan, Minister for Sport.

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