Indian Davis Cup Team Begins Preparations For Togo Tie

Youngsters Karan Singh, Yuvan Nandal and Chirag Duhan sweated it out at the DLTA in New Delhi on Thursday, doing fine live drills to start preparations for the upcoming Davis Cup tie against Togo earnestly. Senior player Ramkumar Ramanathan joined the team in the middle of the session and will begin training on Friday, while Sasi Mukund, N Sriram Balaji, and Rithvik Choudary Bollipalli will arrive soon. Balaji and Bollipalli competed at the Australian Open. Coach Ashutosh Singh conducted the two-and-a-half-hour session in the evening after an equally intense morning session.

Since the DLTA Centre court was still being prepared, the evening session was held at the show court, which is faster than the match court.

"It was a very good first day. We got some solid work done today. The live ball training was important. It gives a good idea to the coach where the players are in terms of movement," Ashutosh told PTI after the session.

Towards the end of the session, the coach asked Duhan to work on adding some slice to his serve.

It will be interesting to see how Ramkumar builds up for the contest as he has been struggling of late, losing a number of first round matches on the ATP Challenger circuit.

He also made a first round exit at the ITF event in Indore.

The slow court was ideally suited for Sumit Nagal and it will be interesting to see how Ramkumar shapes up here.

Togo do not have a single player in top-1000 but Ramkumar said the intensity can't drop.

"You don't know what is coming at you. You have never played them, unknown territory, so can't drop guard," said Ramkumar.

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