N Sriram Balaji and Rathik Chouboury Bollipalli sealed the place of India in Group I of the Davis Cup with a consecutive and consecutive victory, which gave the hosts an unexpected 3-0 advantage against Togo in the play-off draw In New Delhi on Sunday. With an advantage of 2-0 in his pocket, India needed to win only one of the three games of the day and the Balaji and Bollipalli couple did the job in the first contest against M’lapa Tingou Akomolo and Hod’abalo Isak Padio. They won 6-2 6-1 in just 57 minutes in the DLTA complex. Togo replaced his best player Thomas Setodji with M’lapa Tingou Akomolo due to an arm injury and hurt them since he could not maintain the service or once in the contest.
Balaji was sensational with his portion. Playing tennis percentage, he lost only one point in his service during the game.
India is likely to deliver the debut of the young Karan Singh in the dead rubber. It was a fairly simple show of Balaji and Bollipalli, who had won a challenger together last year.
Bollipalli was a bit under pressure when he could not collect a volley medium, which did 30 in his first debut service game, but managed to hold. After that, it was a unidirectional traffic at all times.
The Indians obtained their first break when Akomolo served in the third game. With 15-15, Bollipalli hit a superior right return that sailed on the two players but landed inside the lines. Balaji then hit a winner back from the service to win two rest points.
There was a fascinating volley rally at the first rest points with the four players that show some excellent reflexes, but finally, a return of Akomolo flew over the baseline. He gave India a 3-1 advantage and Balaji did it 4-1 with another strong service game.
His nerves settled, Rathivik was serving even better and soon Akomolo was serving to stay in the set. However, it did not help Togo’s cause by serving two consecutive double failures of 15-15, giving the Indians two adjustment points.
Togo kept the first, but Bollipalli found a upper volley winner in the second.
The Indians once again had the rest early, literally killing any possibility of a Togo struggle. Akomolo’s second service was attacked at 30-there. The Togolesses lost an easy right blow to give the Indian rupture point.
Balaji lost the first point in his service when a double failure in game five served when the Indians led 4-1.
He put under the bomb, Padio also lost his service and Bollipalli served the tie for the hosts.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a union feed).
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