Ripe time for Kirtanes, hopefuls

We play the Philippines first and Lizardo, their No 1 player, is good on slow conditions and will be a tough competitor. We have a big advantage in the doubles so we must try and win both singles. If not, make sure of one singles and go into the doubles. I feel that this is the right time for our third and fourth players — Sandeep and Nitin Kirtane — to compete against this kind of competition.It’s good to have another Indian team — India `A’ — playing. We now have a chance to see them perform against top Asian countries so that we can choose the best team for the Asiad. Their match against South Korea tomorrow will be their toughest match in the group.

The timing for the tournament has worked out perfectly and hence Mahesh and I can play in this event this year. Coming into the event, we have been playing a lot of tennis and it has been a great year so far. We hope to play on the same level this week, as well.I am getting over a chest infection I had during the last two weeks and I am getting stronger everyday. Mahesh, Sandeep and Nitin have played quite a few matches as well and they are match-fit. Nitin had a great Nationals this week at Mumbai getting to the finals of both singles and doubles along with Sandeep. Nitin has been working hard and has improved a lot.

The courts here are slower than what we have been playing in the last couple of weeks but the weather is perfect. We will have to be a little cautious if we play a late evening match as it is quite chilly here.Of course, we are going in as favourites but we will have to be smart as well and do our homework properly so that we can perform at our best.

It will be interesting to watch the India A Team perform over the week, especially when they have the National Hard Court singles and doubles champions in Vasudeva Reddy, Gaurav Natekar and Vikram Venkatraghavan. Gaurav has experience in this format which should stand the team in good stead and Vasu has been playing some confident tennis.

This tournament also gives Mahesh and me a chance to play some singles matches. Because of our busy doubles schedule we have not been able to play as many singles as we wanted this year.

In the last couple of weeks, we had an opportunity to play Boris Becker. It was a very heated match but it was nice to come out with a win. In the following match, we had a chance to move up from fourth to third but unfortunately could not capitalise on four match points and went down to Sebastian Lareau and Alex O’Brien.