Prajnesh Gunneswaran yet again lost to a lower-ranked player in the Davis Cup while Ramkumar Ramanathan went down fighting in the second si...
Prajnesh Gunneswaran yet again lost to a lower-ranked player in the Davis Cup while Ramkumar Ramanathan went down fighting in the second singles as India trailed 0-2 in the World Group I tie against Finland, at Espoo on Friday.
Up against Otto Virtanen, ranked as low as 419 in the ATP ranking chart, the 165th ranked Prajnesh lost 3-6, 6-7(1) in just one hour 25 minutes.
Ramkumar, ranked 187, presented a good fight but lost 4-6, 5-7 to Finland’s number one player, Emil Ruusuvuori, who is ranked 74th.
While Ramkumar tried a few tricks in his bag to overcome his rival, Prajnesh’s defeat was extremely disappointing since he had a less experienced player, who had won just one Davis Cup match before this tie, to contend with.
After dropping his serve in the sixth game, Ramkumar got the break back immediately, playing smartly. He often charged the net to surprise his opponent, getting some good points.
However, he went down 0-40 in the 10th game while serving to stay in the set and lost it when he hit a backhand wide.
Ruusuvuori countered Ramkumar’s strategy of chip and charge easily in the second set, hitting a few passing winners. The home player even got a breakpoint in the fourth game but...
