New Zealand has been beaten 4-1 by India in the Asia/Oceania Group 1 round one Davis Cup tie in Pune with the home team winning both of the reverse singles.
New Zealand tennis player Finn Tearney. Photo: PHOTOSPORT
Finn Tearney was first on court against Ramkumar Ramanathan and was in the match in the first set but found his rival too tough in the second and third sets.
Ramanathan won the match 7-5 6-1 6-0 with a large number of aces giving him plenty of free points, while Tearney struggled with his own serve later in the match.
"Finn had a couple of break points early on, but didn't capitilise on them. He had a good start in his match and couldn't get it over the line. Today was disappointing for us and for Finn. It's difficult for him at the moment. He'll learn from the match and hopefully take that forward. It definitely would have helped if he'd got a break and being able to hold on. He just wasn't that comfortable out there. Going forward these type of Davis Cup matches are very valuable for learning for him," said New Zealand captain Alistair Hunt.
In the fifth match, Rubin Statham was defeated by Yuki Bhambri 5-7 6-3 4-6.
"He (Rubin) definitely played a lot better today. He's working on things and trying to be aggressive out there. It was and a big improvement for him from Friday and it would have been interesting if it had been a live match with the crowd putting pressure on the home player," Hunt said.
New Zealand faces South Korea in the next Davis Cup tie back home in early April. The Korean team were beaten by Uzbekistan 4-1 but features world No.73 Hyeon Chung as its top player.
"Korea is another challenging tie. For us to compete with these guys we've got to compete a lot better in singles than what we are doing at the moment, so that's something else to work on. Chung is a pivotal character in their team, but we've definitely got a really good chance to against them and we're going to have to play well to compete with them and win."
The New Zealand team now disperses around the world to play their respective ATP events in Europe for Michael Venus and South America for Artem Sitak with Tearney and Statham moving on to Challenger events around the Asian region.
