India have named N Sriram Balaji and Ramkumar Ramanathan to play the singles and doubles matches in their Davis Cup World Group 1 first round tie against Sweden.
Two singles matches will be played on Saturday at the Royal Tennis Hall in Stockholm with the doubles match being played on Sunday followed by the reverse singles matches.
In a surprising pick, India have not fielded any of the other three players who have been named for the Sweden tie.
The decision to play Balaji is a curious one considering he has not played on the regular tour since 2022. He did play against and beat Aqeel Khan in India’s Davis Cup tie early this year.
Balaji has been a doubles specialist and partnered Rohan Bopanna in the men’s doubles event at the Paris Olympics.
According to captain Rohit Rajpal, the two players were selected because of their ability to serve big and their forte for net play. However, the Indian strategy of playing Balaji and Ramkumar in the doubles tie on Sunday may change depending on the results on Saturday.
“There’s a lot of pressure on Sweden because it’s a home tie for them,” said Rajpal in a media interaction on Thursday.
“Therefore, we are hoping to add to that pressure. I’ve told the younger boys that they should just focus on the match and soak up the pressure.”
Balaji will take on Sweden no 1 Elias Ymer in the first singles match before Ramkumar faces Sweden no 2 Leo Borg in the second match.
Balaji and Ramkumar will then team up to face the pair of Filip Bergevi and Andre Goransson in the doubles match on Sunday. Ramkumar is then scheduled to play Ymer in the singles match before Balaji faces Borg.
Both teams can change their players for the matches on Sunday. If India win both their matches on Saturday, they could field Nikki Poonacha, Aryan Shah and Siddharth Vishwakarma in the remaining matches.
Rajpal had intimated that the other singles option Poonacha suffered a minor niggle during warm-up, but had worked with the physios to remain fit. However, experience in Balaji and Ramkumar were chosen ahead of youth.
The India captain did express his disappointment at the lack of Sumit Nagal and Yuki Bhambri who made themselves unavailable for the tie. Nagal is India’s top-ranked singles player on the men’s professional ATP tour while Bhambri has risen through the ranks as a commendable doubles player.
