Tennis
Davis Cup: India lose to Sweden, demoted to the World Group 1 playoff
The Indian pairing of Ramanathan and Balaji lost to Filip and Andre of Sweden on Sunday. It confirmed a victory for Sweden in the Davis Cup tie.
Ramkumar Ramanathan and Sriram Balaji lost their doubles match as India went down to Sweden 3-0 in the Davis Cup World Group 1 tie. (Photo credit: Screengrab)
Indian Davis Cup team's poor run at the World Group 1 tie against Sweden continued on the second day as the pairing of Ramkumar Ramanathan and Sriram Balaji conceded a straight-game defeat on Sunday.
With this victory, Sweden took the unassailable lead (3-0) in the tie that confirmed their place in the qualifying round of the World Group Finals.
India, trailing 0-2 overnight after losing their two singles matches on Saturday, lost the men's doubles match and got demoted to the World Group-1 Playoff round to be held next year.
Ramanathan and Balaji conceded a straight-set (3-6, 4-6) defeat to the Swedish pair of Filip Bergevi and Andre Goransson.
In the first set, Ramanathan gave a break to the Swedish pair after a poor serving in the sixth game, where he didn't win a single point. Hence, Filip-Andre took advantage of this and won the set, 6-3.
The Indian pair made a much better start in the second set but in the later half, Filip started playing strong forehand returns to trouble Balaji, resulting in a break in the seventh game.
Indian pair tried to bounce back in the set, troubled the serve of Andre but couldn't find a return due to several unforced errors and lost the set 4-6 and the match.
