Davis Cup: Sumit Nagal falls, Dhakshineswar Suresh steps up; India, Netherlands locked 1-1 in Qualifiers

As Dhakshineswar Suresh sprinted in from deep in the court, the crowd held its breath. When the 25-year-old finished with a classic winner on his third match point to level India’s Davis Cup World Group qualifier round-one tie against the Netherlands at 1-1, the SM Krishna Tennis Stadium exhaled and then exploded.Standing 6ft 5’and ranked 465, Suresh fired nine aces and dropped just 16 points on serve in a commanding display, defeating Dutch No. 1 Jesper de Jong 6-4, 7-5 in 89 minutes.Earlier, Sumit Nagal had gone down in three sets to Guy den Ouden.Watching from the stands on Saturday evening was Rohan Bopanna, whose boomerang serve was once a standout weapon of his own. “Definitely the best serve we have had in India in a while,” he said, “and the good news is he can still develop the second serve especially by some 20-30 percent.”The victory marked the India No.2’s first top-100 win, and achieving it on a stage where the hosts were significantly outranked made it all the more remarkable. Suresh complemented his dominant serving with two astute return games, breaking serve in the 10th and 12th games of the two sets.At the end of the opening set, in which Nagal failed to win a game and managed only a single point on Dutch No. 2 Guy den Ouden’s serve, the India No. 1 sat in the locker room on his own for a couple of minutes after changing his shirt.“I told myself at least a 100 times that I can do it,” Nagal said.Ranked 281, more than a hundred places below his opponent, Nagal was egged on by a vocal home crowd. He mounted a strong recovery in the second set but eventually went down 0-6, 6-4, 3-6 in two hours and 31 minutes in the opening rubber.Nagal, who is returning from a hip injury sustained three weeks ago in Thailand, showed clear signs of recovery in the way he competed throughout a physically demanding match in which both players were left gasping.Early in the decider, India appeared to be on a slippery slope when Nagal was broken in the second game. The 28-year-old held serve in the fourth game and then went up 15-40 on Den Ouden’s serve in the seventh, pushing the crowd to the edge of their seats. He needed four more opportunities to break and give himself a chance to level.The 23-year-old Dutch professional dragged Nagal all over the court, and the Indian, who prides himself on fitness and speed, was running low on both after more than two hours on court. On the sidelines, his trainer, Yash Pandey jumped up and down, screaming encouragement, urging him on.A shoddy eighth game from Nagal, in which he led 3-4, 30-0, ultimately cost him the match.