— Photo: S. Subramanium

SERVING IT UP: Thomas Johansson put Sweden ahead by winning his singles against Rohan Bopanna.

NEW DELHI: : Sweden tightened its grip with a 2-0 lead as Rohan Bopanna's heroics proved inadequate on the third day of the Davis Cup World Group play-off tie at the R.K. Khanna Stadium here on Sunday.

Thomas Johansson finished the job that had been pending for more than 48 hours owing to rain, as the world No. 14 showed the difference in class against the 311th-ranked Bopanna on the key points with a 7-6(3), 7-6(2), 7-6(4) triumph.

Jonas Bjorkman and Simon Aspelin continued in the same vein as the Swedes led 6-3, 1-3 against Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi when play was called off owing to bad light in the doubles.

Weather permitting, efforts would be me made to finish the matches including the reverse singles on Monday, and it was announced that the gates would be free for the public.

All praise for Bopanna

The Swedish captain Mats Wilander and Johansson himself were all praise for Bopanna and emphasised that he deserved credit. Yet, the fact remained that Bopanna missed two setpoints in the 12th game of the third set as he went for too much on his backhand. The tie-break has never been a strong point of the 25-year-old Bopanna and it showed once again as he was reduced to 2-6 following a clutch of errors. He saved two matchpoints, one with a smart backhand volley, but it was a bit too late in the day.

For someone who has played one of the top-10 longest matches in Davis Cup since the introduction of the tie-breaks, when he stretched French Open finalist Martin Verkerk to five sets in Holland in 2003, Bopanna could not take the next logical step towards the progress of his game, though he has done very well to return to the same level after having gone through a surgery.

It was a tough situation on resumption, as the second set tie-break was almost over at 0-5, and Bopanna could not spring any surprise, as business ended in two minutes of action. In the third set, the Coorgi could not convert a breakpoint in the second game, but served top class despite twisting his ankle in the eighth game, that saw him not facing any breakpoint.

In fact, it was a tremendous effort by the lad to have dropped serve only once, in the seventh game of the first set, in the whole match against the former Australian Open champion and the semifinalist of Wimbledon this season.

"It is a great experience for me against an opponent ranked so high. Had I not been good I couldn't have reached three tie-breaks'', said Bopanna.

"I was a little bit lucky in the end. He should not be ranked 300. His service is really good and is tough to return. It was really a bad court, and I just tried to put the ball over the net and serve well'', said Johansson.

"The grass court has been a bit of an equaliser. Johansson can play better, but tennis is all about beating the other guy. Yes, three tie-breaks, but it is still 3-0'', said Mats Wilander.

Entertaining spell

Leander and Mahesh Bhupathi were not at their best as they faced nine breakpoints in all, and two of them on Mahesh's first two service games, before the Indian captain was broken decisively in the eighth game of the first set. However, the duo that has won three Grand Slams as a pair, pushed the level up with an entertaining spell much to the jubilation of the holiday crowd to go up 3-1, breaking Jonas Bjorkman and celebrating that with a chest-bump in what proved to be the last game of the day.

"We are proud with the way Rohan played. He showed a lot of character. He has a world class serve and just needs to learn what to do on the big points'', said Leander, even as he mentioned that he himself was trying to do too much in the first set of the doubles.

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