The Indian tennis team will face hosts Sweden in the Davis Cup 2024 World Group I tie at the Royal Tennis Hall in Stockholm on Saturday and Sunday.
The India vs Sweden Davis Cup tie, to be played on indoor hard courts, will be available on live streaming in India.
India, 36th in the Davis Cup rankings, and world No. 18 Sweden have met five times with the Swedes winning all five of them. The two sides also met in the 1987 Davis Cup final which Sweden won 5-0.
The last Davis Cup tie between the two teams was played 19 years ago in New Delhi which Sweden won 3-1.
A win will see India make the Davis Cup 2024 qualifiers for the first time since 2020. A World Group I tie loss will see them drop to the World Group I play-offs.
The India vs Sweden tennis tie will feature one doubles and four singles matches. However, India have opted to field only Ramkumar Ramanathan and N Sriram Balaji for the singles and doubles matches, leaving Siddharth Vishwakarma, Aryan Shah and Nikki K Poonacha on the bench.
Ramkumar Ramanathan, 332nd in the tennis rankings for singles, is the highest-ranked player in the five-member Indian tennis team while N Sriram Balaji is India’s top doubles player for the tie at world No. 65.
Ramkumar will play the 21-year-old Leo Borg, son of tennis legend Bjorn Borg, on the opening day of the tie. On the second day, Ramkumar will team up with Balaji for the doubles against Filip Bergevi and Andre Goransson.
Sumit Nagal, India’s top singles player at world No. 82, pulled out of the team due to a lingering back injury. World No. 43 doubles player Yuki Bhambri also opted out of the tie. Rohan Bopanna, sixth in the world doubles ranking, called time on his Davis Cup career last year.
Former national champion Ashutosh Singh will serve as the new national coach of India’s Davis Cup team after long-time coach Zeeshan Ali quit last month.
For Sweden, Elias Ymer, ranked 238th, is the Swedish No. 1 in singles while Andre Goransson, world No. 66, is the top-ranked doubles player for the home team.
India had beaten Pakistan 4-0 in the Group I play-offs to qualify for the World Group I stage. They lost to Denmark in the World Group I tie last year.
Sweden, meanwhile, will come into the fixture on the back of a shock 3-1 defeat against Brazil in the qualifiers earlier this year.
The Indian tennis team is yet to win the Davis Cup but has finished runners-up thrice – 1966, 1974 and 1987.
Live streaming of the India vs Sweden Davis Cup World Group I tie will be available on SonyLIV.
India vs Sweden tennis, Davis Cup 2024 schedule
All times are in Indian Standard Time (IST)
Saturday, September 14
Sunday, September 15
Indian Davis Cup team: Ramkumar Ramanathan, Siddharth Vishwakarma, Aryan Shah, Nikki K Poonacha, N Sriram Balaji. Non-playing captain: Rohit Rajpal
Swedish Davis Cup team: Elias Ymer, Leo Borg, Adam Heinonen, Andre Goransson, Filip Bergevi. Non-playing captain: Simon Aspelin
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