Indians upbeat against Koreans

Former Davis cupper Jaideep Mukherjea is the non-playing captain with Enrico Piperno as coach and Dr Vece Paes team doctor. The Indians had very short workout yesterday with Srinath and Fazaluddin playing at the DLTA, but Paes and Bhupathi preferred to stay indoors after their hectic schedule for the past few weeks.

The top doubles combination of Paes and Bhupathi, after reaching the first Grand Slam final at the Australian Open last month, failed to defend their Dubai Open title.

India will depend on Paes, now ranked 86 after his triumph at the Calcutta ATP Challenger and Bhupathi (258) who have hadcrucial practice of singles competition.

The players will get four days to acclimatise to the cold conditions in Korea which will be to the host’s advantage. For India, winning doubles tie in the five-match rubber will be crucial to move ahead. The zonal competition will be held on hard court surface.

Winners of this tie will meet New Zealand Down Under. The Kiwis beat China last week to win their first round of Asia-Oceania zonal competition.

India beat South Korea 3-2 at home when they last met in a Davis Cup rubber. Korea’s Chang-Wie Jong defeated Paes and after India went 2-1 up winning second singles and doubles tie, the Korean beat Ramesh Krishnan to help his team level 2-2.

It was then left to Paes, who won a scintillating second reverse singles to put India into the World Group and himself on the international scene.

India have been dominating since then. They beat Korea in the final of the ATF Asia Cup here in 1997 and though the two teams did not meet in 1998 edition, the hosts retainedtheir title with a fantastic win over Uzbekistan, who eliminated Korea in the semifinals.

Korea, however, turned the tables in Bangkok Asian Games when they beat India in the semis before going on to win the gold. The Indians were however, playing without Paes, who was nursing a bone spur in his left ankle in Orlando, Florida.