{"id":49968,"date":"2018-12-14T10:49:36","date_gmt":"2018-12-14T10:49:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/?p=49968"},"modified":"2018-12-14T10:49:36","modified_gmt":"2018-12-14T10:49:36","slug":"davis-cup-camp-in-kolkata-from-jan-23-mahesh-bhupathi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/davis-cup-camp-in-kolkata-from-jan-23-mahesh-bhupathi\/","title":{"rendered":"Davis Cup camp in Kolkata from Jan 23: Mahesh Bhupathi"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>India Davis Cup captain Mahesh Bhupathi said the preparatory camp for the qualifier against Italy will start here on January 23.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Speaking at the start of the third Premjit Lall Invitational Tennis tournament on Thursday, Bhupathi said he is undecided about whether India will field five or six players for the tie which will be the gateway to a Davis Cup in a new format, one which takes home advantage out of the equation.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is what it is. It doesn\u2019t matter what I or anyone thinks. As a Davis Cup captain, I will play by the rules. That said, it is a pleasure to be back in Kolkata where I made my Davis Cup debut ,\u201d said Bhupathi.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt is sad that Kolkata hasn\u2019t hosted a Davis Cup in all this while (after the Asia-Oceania tie against New Zealand in 2003) but with Somdev becoming India\u2019s No.1 player, grass was not an option. But with the kind of players we have now, grass gives us the best option,\u201d said Bhupathi.<\/p>\n<p>Doing away with five sets in Davis Cup rubbers is good when India play a team like Italy whose top player Fabio Fognini is world No. 13, said Bhupathi. \u201cWe played China in three sets and against such a team, three-setters don\u2019t help.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Asked whether he felt India was conspicuous by its absence on the WTA Tour, Bhupathi, who was instrumental in getting one to the country, said: \u201cWhen you trying to promote a sport, you need someone as a face. If badminton is on it\u2019s way up, it is because Saina (Nehwal) was followed by Sindhu and then Kashyap. We did it to help Sania go up the rankings. I am sure when the time is right, India will be on the Tour again.\u201d<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>India Davis Cup captain Mahesh Bhupathi said the preparatory camp for the qualifier against Italy will start here on January 23. Speaking at the start of the third Premjit Lall Invitational Tennis tournament on Thursday, Bhupathi said he is undecided about whether India will field five or six players for the tie which will be [&hellip;]<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49969,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49968"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49968\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49970,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49968\/revisions\/49970"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}