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Tennis
Paes, Mankad give India a flying start
BEIRUT, FEB. 8. If some tennis fan had found himself caught up in a traffic snarl in downtown Beirut or had been unlucky enough to have had a flat tyre en route, he might very well have missed the entire opening rubber of the India-Lebanon Asia Oceania Group I first round Davis Cup tie here on Friday - unless he had abandoned his car in the traffic jam and had taken to his heels, or perhaps had the services of a Ferrari team to fix his flat tyre!
A touch amused perhaps at the ease with which he was coasting along, Leander Paes looked competition in its face briefly in the first set and then dismissed it - and his rookie opponent Karim Alayli of Lebanon - rather disdainfully for a 6-3, 6-0, 6-0 victory in an hour and 15 minutes to give India the kind of start that champion Formula One drivers dream of from pole position.
In the second singles, Harsh Mankad beat Lebanon's No. 1 Ali Hamadeh 6-3, 6-1, 6-1.
Playing well within himself, India's Davis Cup hero - the second most successful active player on the Cup stage - raced to a 3-0 first set lead, saw Alayli move closer, holding three successive service games, and then put on a burst of speed to win 13 games in a row.
In terms of the final scoreline, this would go down as one of the most dominant performances in the 54 singles matches that the Atlanta Games Olympic bronze medallist has played for India in Davis Cup.
This was Paes's 35th singles victory in the competition and his easiest in a long time.
To be sure, Alayli was hardly expected to pose serious problems to an experienced champion who has always played his best tennis in Davis Cup. But the young man's capitulation on losing the first set was shocking, to say the least.
The enthusiastic home team supporters, among them a few colourful ones bedecked in the colours of the Lebanese flag, had few occasions to cheer on an afternoon when Paes won as he pleased on the lightning quick carpet in a rather small basketball stadium.
A more experienced competitor might have asked a few questions of the Indian who was playing in his first singles match since losing in the first round of the Tata Open in Chennai. But Alayli was not up to the task.
The young Lebanese player came up with his best for a quarter of an hour late in the first set as he hit some lovely returns now and again and served a few big ones to hold to 1-3, 2-4 and then 3-5.
But once he served out the first set, Paes was virtually unstoppable and nervous errors crept into Alayli's game. Not once in the entire match was Paes taken even to deuce on his serve.
Serving for the match, Paes hit a double fault on his first matchpoint but came up with a delightful low volley winner to the forehand corner to wrap up the opening rubber.
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