In a thrilling tennis clash, India’s Ramkumar Ramanathan clinched victory against the veteran Pakistani tennis player Aisam-ul-Haq with scores of 6-7(3), 7-6(4), 6-0 in Davis Cup.
According to the details, this victory gave India a 1-0 lead in the Davis Cup World Group I playoff tie in Islamabad today.
The match was close until the second set, but Aisam had some fitness problems in the third set and even paused the game for medical help.
Ramanathan used Aisam’s fitness issues to his great advantage and won the third set by a large margin.
After the match, Aisam said in a brief interview that having the Indian team come to Pakistan feels like a victory to him and mentioned he believes that tennis could help improve relations with India.
Indian captain Zeeshan Ali, whose father was in the 1964 team that visited Pakistan, said it was emotional to be in Pakistan. He mentioned that India played against Pakistan 60 years ago, and his father was part of that team, winning three matches.
It must be remembered that the last time these two countries played against each other was in Kazakhstan in 2014, and India won 4-0.