It Paes to have faith

However, like yesterday, this morning dawned ominously at the BPL ATP Tennis Challenger. There were three more pull-outs, following the two on Monday.

Chandigarh-based Akshay Vishal Rao, US-based Jayant Sood and local boy Kaptan Karsolia got just about a look in before they were annihilated by their respective opponents. Prahlad Srinath, who played Karsolia after gearing up to meet Canadian Dave Abelson, must have lost the only game he did in his 6-0, 6-1 win out of sheer frustration.

His opponent was unable to do much more than get the ball over the net, and that too, barely. Srinath double-faulted thrice to lose that single game, but that was it.

In the other two matches involving lucky losers, AV Rao got to the ball but Sood didn’t quite match up to Nitin Kirtane in a match between southpaws.

Paes gave notice of what he planned to do in the first game itself, by sending down two blistering aces. Over the next 85 minutes, he allowed himself to get a feel of Van Scheppingen’s game before hustling the Dutchman off the court. Early on, Van Scheppingen made Paes run all over and passed the Indian almost every time he came in to volley, forcing Paes to stay on the baseline.

Once Paes had his measure, he brought himself back. The next service game after the one he was broken, he sent down three aces and then produced an absolute stunner to break the Dutchman at love. Except a slight hiccup in the tie-break, when Paes allowed his opponent to catch up after cruising at 5-0, Paes was in command for the rest of the match.

Van Scheppingen dished out eight double faults to Paes’ three, while the Indian fifth seed had 12 aces to the Dutchman’s seven.

After the match, Paes said he enjoyed the match. “If I’d played this match last year this time, it would’ve been alright. Right now, after all that’s happened and been said about my singles play, it has to be one of the best,” he said.

Yesterday, Paes remarked that he was “hungry to be Asia No 1” again. Right now, the Asian No 1 Srichaphan is about a 100 places above Paes and doesn’t look like he’s going anywhere down. It is really too early to say whether Paes has turned a corner with his performance here, but as he puts it, this week and the next in Jaipur will tell.

Results (country, ranking in parenthesis; seeding prefix)

Kristian Pless (Den, 491) bt 3-Mose Navarra (ITA, 149) 6-4, 6-4; 2-Oleg Ogorodov (Uzb, 132) bt Joan Jiminez-Guerra (And, 529) 6-2, 6-4; 5-Jamie Delgado (GBR, 203) bt Martin Hromec (SVK, 426) 3-6, 6-2, 7-5; 8-Takahiro Terachi (Jap, 293) bt LL-Akshay Vishal Rao (Ind) 6-0, 6-1; Nitin Kirtane (Ind, 836) bt LL-Jayant Sood (USA) 6-2, 6-1; Prahlad Srinath (Ind, 324) bt LL-Kaptan Karsolia (Ind) 6-0, 6-1; 6-Leander Paes (Ind, 204) bt Dennis van Scheppingen (Ned, 452) 7-6 (8-6), 6-4; Barry Cowan (GBR, 310) bt Heiko Bolich (Ger, 831) 6-0, 6-2; Satoshi Iwabuchi (JPN, 296) bt Tomas Anzari (Cze) 6-7 (5-7), 6-1, 6-4.