BY BD Narayankar
Bengaluru, Feb 9 (.) There are Davis Cup ties that are won on the scoreboard, and then there are those that are won in the heart. India’s 3–2 victory over the Netherlands belonged firmly to the latter, shaped by courage on court and quiet faith off it, as captain Rohit Rajpal revealed that Sumit Nagal “fought like a tiger” to carry the team through a demanding contest.
Nagal, India’s number one, walked onto court carrying a grade-two tear in his hip, short of match play and even shorter on preparation. Operating at well below full fitness, he lost both his singles matches against Guy de Ouden and Jesper de Jong, yet never stepped away from responsibility. “This is not even 50 percent of Sumit Nagal,” India Captain Rohit Rajpal admitted, underlining how different the tie could have been had Nagal been fully fit.
“That was a tough match,” Rajpal reflected. “Honestly, the way Sumit started today, the way he was fired up, I really thought it was going to end there. But fortunes change very quickly at this level — that’s how tennis is.” It was a reminder of the thin margins that define the sport at the highest level.
Behind the scenes, the physios — Dr Das, Yash and Anand — worked through days and nights to give India a fighting chance. The long, draining fourth rubber, Rajpal acknowledged, also played its part. “Yes, the long match definitely gave DK more time to recover, there’s no question about that,” he said. “We had Dr Das working with him continuously on recovery, on getting his energy back, loading him up so that he could come back firing on court — and that’s exactly what he did.”
Behind the scenes, the physios — Dr Das, Yash and Anand — worked through days and nights to give India a fighting chance. Their efforts did not show on the scoresheet, but they echoed in every rally Nagal refused to surrender.
The spotlight, inevitably, fell on Dhakshineswar Suresh, the calm and towering presence who won all three of his matches to seal the tie and script India’s 3–2 triumph. Rajpal called him his trump card, the man he could turn to when belief needed a human form. But Davis Cup, as history has repeatedly shown, is never about one man alone.
As the tie stretched into its most anxious hours, Rajpal found himself leaning on something deeper than tactics. “This was a big moment for us and we needed to cross this hurdle,” he said. He spoke of praying through the doubles and again when the tie did not end in singles.
The captain reflected on a belief deeply rooted in Indian sport — that a parent’s blessings never fade. “I really thought we would finish it in the singles,” Rajpal said. “When that didn’t happen, I had to pray again for him (DK) to go out there and finish it in style, in straight sets.” With bodies already drained after days of grinding tennis, he hoped the tie would not stretch further.
When India finally crossed the line to defeat the Netherlands 3–2, there was relief, gratitude and something quieter. “She blessed us,” Rajpal said of his late mother. “I truly feel her hand is always over my head and over the team as well.”
With growing depth across singles and doubles, Rajpal believes Indian tennis is rediscovering a familiar truth — that when it plays to its potential, it can take on anyone in the world.
In Davis Cup, victories are forged not just in forehands and backhands, but in faith, memory and the invisible strength that carries teams through when legs grow heavy and hearts beat fastest.
. . CDS