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'We start as underdogs': Leander

Ask Leander Paes, and he says India will start as underdogs against Britain in the world group Davis Cup tie to be played in Nottinghamshire later this week.

In Calcutta for a brief while -- he left for London on Sunday -- Leander said, ''The conditions are in their favour. Moreover, their players are higher-ranked and very talented. It will give them the advantage.''

According to Paes, both Tim Henman and Greg Rusedski are good singles players. ''But in Davis Cup, you never know," he warned. "We have beaten higher-ranked teams before, and there is no reason why we cannot do it again. We do look forward to springing some surprises this time too,'' he added.

''Moreover, if they have better singles players, we have the better doubles team,'' he pointed out. ''The first day is going to be very important.''

Though Paes believes Britain have the advantages, he says he is not too worried. ''Mahesh and I have been performing very consistently, and we are the number three pair in the world right now. We have also balanced our doubles and singles act pretty well,'' Leander said.

''Of late we have been playing well. We are a lot more confident, and that shows in our game. As far as doubles is concerned, we have a 99 per cent record in final appearances.''

As far as conditions are concerned at the venue, Leander doesn't have a clue. "I have never been to Nottinghamshire," he says.

The British squad for the Davis Cup tie, as announced, has the 11th ranked Tim Henman and the 15th ranked Greg Rusedski, along with Miles MacLagan (287) and Neil Broad (33) playing the doubles.

MacLagan's inclusion, at the expense of the number 140-ranked Chris Wilkinson, came as a bit of a surprise. Also possibles -- though they didn't get picked -- were the likes of Barry Cowan and Andrew Richardson.

Miles MacLagan however has been playing well of late, having just won the Bronx challenger. He had come up inside the top-200 as a 21 year old, but then had a major elbow surgery in 1996. The Bronx was his first challenger win after that.

One thing is sure, Henman and Rusedski will play the singles unless there is a dead-rubber match in the end.

It is the doubles event that will give the British captain, David Lloyd -- a former Davis Cup star himself, and former husband of Chris Evert -- some headaches. The question he has to crack is, who to partner with Niel Broad. In the world group promotion tie earlier against Ukraine earlier, Lloyd came in for criticism by having Henman and Rusedski play the doubles. The two did win the game, but looked very out of sorts in a version of the game they are not too used to.

Henman and Neil Broad, if you recall, had won the doubles silver at the Atlanta Olympics, beating Kroslak/Kucera, Connell/Nestor and Goellner/Prinosil en route to the final where they lost in straight sets to the Woodies. The bottomline being that the duo could be troublesome, if Lloyd decides to use them in tandem.

In a brief to the official Davis Cup site, Leander brought up an interesting point about site selection. He was asked, "You say there will be lots of support for the home side but we all know there is a very big Indian community in England as well?" Lee's answer was, "There is a big Indian community but we're playing in Nottingham. They were smart, they took it as far out of London as possible. We'll see, but I think we'll see plenty of Indian support out there and I think if we make it 1-1 after the first day, coming into the doubles we have a hell of a shot at the tie."

An interesting comment by Greg Rusedski, when he was quizzed about Paes playing some very good tennis and about how the Indian had beaten Pete Sampras recently: "Hopefully, Leander doesn't show up like he did against Sampras. I mean he plays unbelievably well and it's going to be a tough tie. I mean they've got their top five doubles team in the world and Leander and Davis Cup, for some reason, go together. For some reason he is a player above the way he is on the Tour. Now he's transitioning that game onto the Tour, so it's going to be a difficult tie."

John McEnroe, in his regular column in the Telegraph, said last week: "It's about time Britain got back to the world group, and they won't get a better chance than against India, though Paes and Bhupathi are some doubles team".

This tie is for the right to make it into the world group final-16 for next year. Britain has played the regional qualifiers for the European Zone and are among the 4 teams who advanced to the world group qualifier playoff (played among the 8 first round losers of the 1998 final-16, and 8 teams who advanced in '98 from the regionals).

India was in the same situation as against Chile last year, in September, except that tie was on grass which the Chileans had never seen in their life, whereas this one is on hardcourt. A neutral surface, though the UK team would have normally prefered grass -- it appears they were too scared to pick that against India.

Actually, grass would have been a good option for the home team, as Leander and Mahesh haven't done much, even in doubles, on that surface. On the fast hardcourt, they are as good as conceding the doubles tie to India.

One wonders if David Lloyd knew that India almost lost the five-set doubles match on grass at Delhi against Rios and Massu, but for a bad call by the Spanish line judge.

That show by Rios and Massu should forever remind everyone how different things are in Davis Cup. The Indian pair could well find itself on the losing end despite its high ranking -- just as Leander regularly beats higher ranked players in the singles.

That after all is the beauty of the Davis Cup.