Davis Cup: Korea builds a slow court to stop India’s Dhakshineswar and Nagal

India chase a first-ever Asian berth in the Final 8 against a tailored surface

South Korea didn’t just slow the court down. They studied the two men who’d be standing on it.

“They have resurfaced the court with a lot of thought and intelligence where they have actually tried to counter both our players,” India captain Rohit Rajpal told PTI after a training session in Seoul. “Sumit likes the balls to bounce because he rolls a lot. But the balls are not bouncing. They have slowed it down because DK also does not like slow courts. He has a huge serve. So they countered it again with this thing.”

There is something almost personal in that, a hard court engineered not against a strategy but against two specific bodies, two specific habits. Dhakshineswar Suresh and Sumit Nagal will spend this tie fighting a surface built with them in mind.

The stakes explain the trouble South Korea has gone to. A win puts India into the Davis Cup Final 8, a stage no Asian nation has reached since the format was revamped. It has taken three ties to get here. India blanked Togo 4-0 at Delhi’s DLTA Complex in February last year. They then went to Biel and beat ninth-seeded Switzerland 3-1, India’s first win over a European nation on European soil since 1993, a year in which Leander Paes and Ramesh Krishnan were still doing the winning. Then came the Netherlands in Bengaluru this February, and Dhakshineswar again, three rubbers played, three rubbers won, a 3-2 upset that has brought India to this final step.

He arrives without the partner he’d have wanted. Yuki Bhambri, who reached the US Open doubles semifinals last year and had complemented Dhakshineswar well in the win over the Dutch, is out with a thigh injury picked up before his own first-round match at Flushing Meadows. In his place, Niki Poonacha joins N Sriram Balaji, up against Uisung Park and Jisung Nam on the tie’s second day.

The Seoul Olympic Park Tennis Center has seen a country do something no one else had done before. Thirty-eight years ago, in the same stadium, tennis returned to the Olympics after 64 years away, and Steffi Graf beat Gabriela Sabatini there to complete the only calendar-year Golden Slam the sport has known. India is chasing something smaller in scale but no less unprecedented for a nation that hasn’t managed it: an Asian team through to the Final 8.

Both singles matches carry their own strange symmetry.

Dhakshineswar opens on Friday against Soonwoo Kwon, ranked 157, a two-time ATP titlist who once reached No. 52 before 18 months of mandatory military service pulled him out of the game entirely. Nagal follows against Hyeon Chung, ranked 549 now but once as high as 19, a man who beat Novak Djokovic and Alexander Zverev on his way to an Australian Open semifinal in 2018, before injuries and his own military service did the rest. Nagal knows something about rebuilding a career interrupted; his own path back from injury has been its own long haul toward a career-high No. 68.

Dhakshineswar has felt the difference a crowd makes before. “Last time I was at home, and we had the whole stadium behind us,” he said, “and it will be the same for them in Korea. But we are hoping we are going to get some fans, and that will definitely help us give us a little bit more energy so we can push a little harder.”

He will need whatever energy the crowd can spare him. The court, at least, has already made its intentions clear.

India vs South Korea, Davis Cup Qualifiers Round 2: Live on DD Sports, Prasar Bharati Sports, Veto app and Waves OTT, 10:30am onwards