Tennis: Rea rues one that got away in Davis Cup

By DAVE WORSLEY

It was honour in defeat, but the result still went the wrong way for the New Zealand Davis Cup team.

India beat New Zealand 3-2 at Stadium Southland in Invercargill in the Asia/Oceania group one clash.

Leander Paes was India's hero, winning all three of his matches and dropping serve only once.

With the tie locked 2-2 going into the last singles, Paes won the deciding match 3-6, 7-5, 6-3, 6-2 over Simon Rea.

And for all his effort in pushing a player with experience and talent, Rea summed up the feeling from the New Zealand camp when he said "second sucks".

New Zealand only had one player, Mark Nielsen, who had taken the court before in Davis Cup, and then Dan King Turner was injured in practice when he rolled his ankle.

The Kiwis were probably down 1-0 before the tie started, knowing they would lose the doubles against Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi.

But as new captain Bruce Derlin said after Rea's loss, the win was New Zealand's for the taking.

"We should have won. At 6-3, 5-5 [in the deciding match], we should have taken a two-set-to-love lead and it's a long way back from there.

"Leander was definitely rattled. For a set and 10 games Simon was the best player out there. Simon could have ... should have won," said Derlin who admitted he was exhausted after his first tie as captain.

"I'm shattered. It was a tie we could have won."

Rea took the first set against Paes by breaking the Indian's serve in the second game.

It was the first time Paes had been broken in any of his matches and it proved a big bonus for Rea, who won the set 6-3.

The second set was with serve until 5-5, when Paes held his serve to love and then broke Rea's serve in a game which had a number of tight rallies but also featured Paes using plenty of gamesmanship which included almost taunting Rea to play better if he was going to win.

In cricket it would be called sledging, but in tennis it's gamesmanship. It obviously had both Derlin and Rea annoyed, although they tried to deny it had any major impact on the match.

"It's part of the game and our guys have to get used to it," said Derlin. "We know all about how they play."

Paes also broke Rea's serve once in the third set as he upped the tempo of the match while Rea struggled to hold his serve.

In the final set, Rea was broken in the first and eighth game to give Paes a 6-2 scoreline.

The day started well for New Zealand as Nielsen took the tie to a fifth match with an easy win over Indian newcomer Vishal Punna 6-4, 6-3, 6-1.

Punna was a late replacement for Indian No 1 Harsh Mankad, who had not played well in his first-day loss to Rea.

Punna, in his first Davis Cup match, started well and led 3-1 after breaking Nielsen in the second game. However, Nielsen then regathered to round out the set.

In the second set, the experience of Nielsen showed through as he broke Punna early and held his own serve to win 6-3.

The final set was Nielsen all the way, breaking his opponent's serve on three occasions and playing some smooth tennis.

New Zealand now face an April encounter with the losers of the Japan-Indonesia tie.

If Indonesia lose, New Zealand will play away in Indonesia. If Japan lose, the match will be in New Zealand.