It will be after a long gap that India’s best doubles partner — Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi will return to action together — though only for the Davis Cup tie against Japan starting February 7-9. Their chance of clicking with each other is quite high despite their differences, feels India’s non-playing captain Ramesh Krishnan, who was however not present at the team’s announcment here today.‘‘Both Leander and Mahesh are in good touch and are playing pretty well at the Australian Open. They have also played together for such a long time that even if they are not playing together now they understand each others game well and can get down to business without any difficulty,’’ said Krishnan.Besides Leander and Mahesh, the others in the team for the Asia-Ocenia Group-I Davis Cup tie are Rohan Bopanna, currently the highest-ranked Indian on the ATP circuit and Harsh Mankad while the up-coming and 2001 Asian Junior Champion Sunil Kumar Sipaeya finds himself in the reserve. Krishnan seems happy with the performance of the yougnsters and said, “both Rohan and Harsh are playing some good tennis. Rohan had two wonderful tournaments at Chennai (Tata Open) and New Delhi (ITF Futures) and Harsh too is playing some good tennis.” However, the Indian captain did not reveal who will play the second singles match. “We are meeting in New Delhi soon and will decide,” he said.India’s record against Japan in Davis Cup is quite impressive. India has a 16-2 record against Japan in Davis Cup and in the previous meeting in Osaka (2001), the Indians clinched the rubber 3-2. Hope things wont be different this time around.
