Michael Venus couldn’t defeat Yuki Bhambri to give New Zealand a Davis Cup victory.
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Yuki Bhambri’s performance against New Zealand was no less than a top-50 player and even the staunchest of his critics would have changed their opinion about the youngster had they seen him play in Christchurch, says India’s Davis Cup coach Zeeshan Ali.
The Kiwi players will look to match the efficiency of Sitak and Daniell, ranked 43rd and 66th in the world respectivley in doubles.
Afterwards, the Indian team celebrated their achievement with a victory dance.
“The most important thing of the day was how Yuki played”. Bhambri, playing only his second live fifth rubber, came out all guns blazing against Venus, who had stunned Devvarman in the first match of the tie.
Devvarman went about his business calmly and made a flawless start when he broke Daniell in the very first game of the opening set.
Venus had a break point to go ahead 4-2 in the third set but could not convert and then had two break point chances to equalise at 4-4.
The winning nation will progress to the World Group Play-offs.
It was in the third set that Venus threatened a bit when he had Bhambri down a break point in the sixth game but the Indian was up to the task and thwarted his rival’s attempts. I’ve been in this situation only twice where we tied 2-2 and was at the losing end of it the last time around when we played Serbia. I can’t remember us do that. Rohan helped me even before the match yesterday to prepare for it and today throughout the match, he really put some good support.
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The reward for the victor will be a September encounter with one of either the United States, Croatia, Czech Republic, Germany, Italy, Japan, Switzerland or Brazil, with a crack at a place in the 2016 World Group on the line for the New Zealand team.
