The Hindu : Sport / Tennis : India to host Sweden in Davis Cup

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, May 04, 2005

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Sport - Tennis

India to host Sweden in Davis Cup

Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI: India will have the onerous task of challenging Sweden in the Davis Cup World Group qualifying round to be staged at home from September 23 to 25.

The secretary-general of the All India Tennis Association (AITA), Anil Khanna, said that the surface would be grass and the venue would be decided at an early date.

Sweden had lost 2-3 to France in the first round of World Group in March. It has two top-20 singles players — Joachim Johansson (12) and Thomas Johansson (18) — apart from the current world No.1 doubles player Jonas Bjorkman. The fourth member of the Swedish team, Simon Aspelin is ranked 19 in doubles.

In comparison, Harsh Mankad is ranked No.244 and Prakash Amritraj 292. Mahesh Bhupathi and Leander Paes are ranked No.10 and 11 respectively in doubles.

In the last meeting between the two countries in Bastad on clay in July 2000, India managed to win only two sets, through Mahesh Bhupathi and Syed Fazaluddin in the doubles rubber against Nicklas Kulti and Mikael Tillstrom.

The play-off draw (World group): Austria vs Ecuador; Belarus vs Canada; Chile vs Pakistan; Czech Republic vs Germany; Spain vs Italy; Sweden vs India; Switzerland vs Britain and U.S. vs Belgium.

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