India lost both their singles matches on the opening day of the 2024 Davis Cup World Group I tie against Sweden on Saturday.
At the Royal Tennis Hall in Stockholm, N Sriram Balaji opened the tie in the first match against Elias Ymer, but lost 4-6, 2-6.
Later on, Ramkumar Ramanathan, an experienced Davis Cup campaigner, also came up short against the lower-ranked Leo Borg. The latter dispatched Ramkumar 6-3, 6-3 in just under an hour to put the hosts up 2-0 in the tie.
Balaji, who is a doubles specialist, found it tough going against Ymer who is ranked world No 238, but the pressure was on Ramkumar to give India a point going into Day 2.
Ramkumar began well enough in his match against Borg, leading 2-1 in the match. But buoyed by the home crowd, Borg then countered Ramkumar’s big serves with some smart playing of his own and raced to a 5-2 lead in the opening set.
Despite keeping his serve to stay in the first set at 3-5, Borg won the opening 6-3 by holding his serve game to love.
The Swede then stamped his authority on the match by breaking Ramkumar’s serve in the seventh game of the second set. It was then easy for Borg, ranked world No 603 to Ramkumar’s 332, to close out the game and give the hosts a decisive lead.
It’s going to be difficult for India to get back into the tie with their doubles match on Sunday scheduled against Andre Goransson and Filip Bergevi. Furthermore, it remains to be seen if India captain Rohit Rajpal sticks with the same combination of Balaji and Ramkumar for the doubles fixture.
