Canada a strong team in Davis Cup: Bhupathi

The Indian team, which had a weeklong training camp in New York before reaching Edmonton, is set to make a fourth consecutive attempt to qualify for the elite World Group. After dominating the Asia/ Oceania zone, India lost to tennis power-houses Serbia (2014), Czech Republic (2015) and Rafael Nadal-led Spain (2016) at the World Group Play-off stage in recent years.

Canada has named world number 51 Shapovalov, who reached the US Open fourth round, Vasek Pospisil (82) along with seasoned Daniel Nestor (43 in doubles) and Brayden Schnur (202) for the play-off tie, starting Friday. “Canada is a quality team but of course we are here because we earned the chance to play them. I personally think they are a stronger team than the Czechs when they came to India,” Bhupathi told PTI from Edmonton. 

Shapovalov has made quite a splash with his performance in the last few weeks. Before making the US Open fourth round as a qualifier, the 18-year-old had shocked Nadal en route the semifinals of the Montreal Masters. The Czechs had travelled to India with Jiri Vesely (then world number 40 and now 59) and Lukas Rosol (then world number 85) as the main singles players. Radek Stepanek, winner of two Grand Slam titles with Leander Paes, had played only doubles with Adam Pavlasek. Bhupathi said going to the University of Columbia in New York for the camp has helped the team prepare better for the indoor tie. 

“The week of practice indoors has helped the team. The boys have hit a lot of balls and are feeling good, so we are looking forward to the weekend,” he said. Bhupathi, who replaced Anand Amritraj in the captain’s chair early this year, said the recent success of both Yuki Bhambri and Ramkumar Ramanthan against high-quality rivals is a tremendous confidence booster. While Yuki had scalped world number 22 Gael Monfils at the Citi Open, Ramkumar had an upset win over Domnic Thiem.