Almost a week before the start of their 2017 Fed Cup campaign in the Asia/Oceania Group I, the Indian team was left adrift when Sania Mirza, the squad’s most experienced – and visible – face pulled out of the competition with an injury to her knee. It was then a daunting task for the Indian skipper Nandan Bal to lead his inexperienced squadron against the towering likes of Japan and China.
Parallelly, the disparity in the perceiving – and acceptance – of the national Davis Cup and Fed Cup teams also came to the fore in the seemingly nondescript way the aspect of India losing out on Mirza’s value-addition was thrust aside amid the euphoric swing of the Indian Davis Cup team against New Zealand last week.
India’s Fed Cup history: Merely making up statistical tallies
“We need players in the top-100 of the singles [rankings],” said Anand Amritraj, in his chat with Scroll.in during his last outing as India’s Davis Cup skipper in the tie against New Zealand. “That’s what we need most of all. Doubles players we will always have. We need to focus on singles. We have lost a lot of ground to the Asian countries [and] that upsets me. Japan, Korea and China are all better than us or at least as good.” While the same line of thought can be amply applied to the Indian eves, in the Fed Cup, it also serves to bring out the sorry state of affairs more direly.
India still commands a notable presence in the Davis Cup in not only being a three-time former finalist, but in also having a decent array of players to choose from. However, India’s Fed Cup representation, in the 26 years that they have been playing the event, has hardly made a splash.
As per the current Fed Cup format, India is grouped along with six other countries, namely, Kazakhstan, South Korea, Thailand, China, Japan and Philippines, in the Asia/Oceania Group I. Within this grouping, there’s a further sub-division of two, with three countries – Kazakhstan, South Korea and Thailand – clubbed in Pool A and the other four, including India, placed in Pool B. One top team from each pool will contest the World Group II Play-off, while a bottom-placed team from each pool will take on each other in a relegation play-off, with the losing team relegated to the Asia/Oceania Group II for the next year.
Till date, India’s best result in the tournament has been finishing as the finalist of the Asia/Oceania Zone Group I in 2006, when they contested – and lost – the promotional play-off against Australia to qualify for the World Group II play-offs. As far as the player strength is concerned, the availability of competent resources hasn’t had accounted for much against teams that have players who are relatively perched high up along the WTA rankings.
Reality check against better opponents
This aspect has had been markedly underscored this week, most particularly in India’s 3-0 drubbing at the hands of China and Japan, both of whom, like India, fielded debutants in their respective lineup. But while the Indian team’s roster of maiden Fed Cup nominees – in Karman Kaur Thandi, Riya Bhatia and Snehadevi S Reddy – had them ranked outside the top-500, the Chinese and Japanese players participating in their first-ever Fed Cup rubbers had the added advantage of being ranked inside the top-150, and the top-100 for that matter, to swerve the results to their side.
India could then regard their 2-1 win over Philippines in their final round robin tie in Pool B on Friday as a saving grace for them to remain in the Asia/Oceania Group I for the third year running. However, in the truest of terms, given that they were still pushed to the brink – by a team that has been relegated to the Asia/Oceania Group II – should serve as a pivotal marker of introspection about the country’s future. Not just as a part of the Fed Cup fraternity, but also in the way Indian women’s tennis is put out before the world.
Li Na’s emergence as a multiple time Major champion created a ripple effect globally about the perspective of the Chinese tennis community, most prominently in the WTA Tour, which led to a decided increase in the number of WTA events held across the country and, consequentially, a thronging participation of the WTA Tour’s top-ranked players.
Cut to India, in spite of Mirza’s emphatic successes and sustained rise in the WTA rankings including a record stay as the world No. 1, there’s been no similar prominence about having – or rather, bringing back – WTA tournaments to India.
It’s then the All India Tennis Association’s responsibility to ensure that women’s tennis in India is able to maximise its leverage – in the nation’s interests – from Mirza’s achievements. As there is the pressing need to ascertain that the scope of the sport’s domain for women doesn’t end with Mirza alone. Preferably, by starting with overhauling and streamlining of the entirety of Indian tennis’ existing systemic module at the earliest.