South Africa received a much-needed lifeline in the World Group Davis Cup play-off at the Ellis Park Indoor Arena on Saturday afternoon when India’s Mahesh Bhupathi suffered a pulled groin muscle in the third set of the doubles.
India baled out of the match with the reunited pairing of Wesley Moodie and Jeff Coetzee leading 6-3, 3-6, 4-0.
It was a surprise ending to the match in which Bhupathi was partnered by Rohan Bopanna, with few, if any, in the 2 000 crowd realising the Indian star was in deep trouble as South Africa reduced the deficit from the opening day’s singles.
They now go into the fateful final day of the tie on Sunday trailing 2-1.
”The injury occurred in the second game of the third set,” said Bhupathi, ”and became increasingly worse. Finally I realised there was no purpose in continuing”.
There was speculation amid the buzz at Ellis Park
that South Africa might call on Moodie, a former South African number one, before injuries forced him to concentrate solely on doubles, to play the ultimate match in place of Izak van der Merwe if Rik De Voest claws the home team back into contention by beating Somdev Devvarman in Sunday’s clash.
But South African team captain John-Laffnie de Jager dismissed the proposition and said he would rely on De Voest and Van der Merwe ”to pull the match out of the fire”.
But when play got under way on Saturday there were doubts that South Africa would even be in contention after the doubles — particularly in view of the fact that Moodie had split up with Coetzee as a doubles pair in March in what had been less than
harmonious circumstances.
”That was all in the past,” said Coetzee afterwards.
”We’ve always been good friends off the court and fitted together again like a glove.”
In truth, the combination once referred to as the ”Mutt and Jeff” pair because of the disparity in height between the 6ft 5in Moodie and the diminutive Coetzee, performed as though their
combination had never been disrupted.
The ice-cool South Africans gained an ascendancy at 4-4 in the first set when Bhupathi dropped serve amid a flurry of errors, and had an inviting opportunity of taking a firm grip on proceedings when they had a break point on Bopanna’s service at 2-2 in the second set.
But the Indian pair weathered the storm and came back with a vengeance of impressive big-hitting to clinch the second set and level the match after Coetzee served a double-fault.
”I believed we had the momentum at that point,” said Bhupathi, ”and so it was a big disappointment when I stretched for a wide ball and felt the muscle go.
”I had a similar injury a few months back and it took more than three weeks to mend.”
Coetzee said he had sensed ”something was wrong” when Bhupathi stopped approaching the net on serve in the third set.
”But I was bemused at what was going on and thought they were using some sort of tactics,” he added.
”It’s not great winning in this manner, but in the circumstances we’ll certainly take it — and hope the tide will now turn South Africa’s way.”
Sunday’s prospective singles matches (starting at noon with the captains allowed to change players up to one hour earlier): Rik De Voest (South Africa) v Somdev Devvarman (India); Izak van der Merwe (South Africa) v Rohan Bopanna (India). – Sapa