[OpEd] Indian Davis Cup Camp, or whatever’s left of it — socialist (s)tragedy
originally published on Sep 16'24 at
We just wrapped up an enthralling Davis Cup tie of India vs Sweden. While Sweden posted a clean sweep on the scoreboard in every sense with no set dropped and just one (or two) serves broken, the score didn’t justify the emotional rollercoaster the match was. Bala was legendary, Ram powered through like Sri Ram and our debutant Siddharth gave the top Swede Ymer a run for point few times too many.
Despite some positive moments from the Indian contingent, this piece highlights a disappointing decision that, if part of a larger trend in Indian tennis, could risk sending the sport’s future in the country into decline. If you were looking for something rosy to begin your week, this is the cue to bookmark it for later in the week for Sunday breakfast or better, Friday drinks.
Three games in, India had lost the majority of total five rubbers of the Davis Cup tie, and hence the tie itself. We were gearing up for the next match which is usually called dead rubber given it’s not consequential.
At an international stage though with millions of hearts tuned in and the best players of two nations donning their national uniforms stepping up for duty, the match is far from dead. It is typically used as a symbolic gesture of gunning for maximum points for your country by playing the best possible player, or as a platform for a new emerging player to get exposed to the big stage and prepare them for years to come. India had the opportunity to do both- play Ram who was our best singles player available on court and Aryan who is just 18 years old, ranked 637 and has his career in front of him.
India however, decided to play another third strategy of giving this opportunity to Siddharth Vishwakarma who is 29 and ranked 588 on the tour. We sadly didn’t have any winning strategy which showed on the court, in his opponent’s comments (“I don’t think he was ready, I don’t even know if he knew he’ll play few minutes before the match”) and the captain Rohit Rajpal’s comments who went on to defend the decision by saying, “Aryan has a whole career ahead of him. He (Siddharth) got a chance today, may not get it again since there are many people ahead of (aka better than) him.. Idea is to give an opportunity to a guy who has been around for so long and waited for an opportunity.. And the Davis Cup tag (finally) comes to him”.
At the highest level of the sport, I wonder how the focus shifted from reviving our national flag as one of the major tennis powerhouses to getting another player a participation certificate. I wonder if an opportunity like this could have made a difference to the future of Aryan and Indian tennis. I hope and pray that I am overthinking and this argument and this article is unnecessary. Sadly though, we’ll never know.
/Preet
