Christchurch: Rohan Bopanna and Saketh Myneni were done in by some "flawless" tennis played by the Kiwi players according to India coach Zeeshan Ali but the team remains optimistic of winning the Davis Cup tie.
Big serving Indians were humbled 3-6 6-7(1) 3-6 by Artem Sitak and Marcus Daniell, leaving Somdev Devvarman and Yuki Bhambri with an unenviable task of winning both the matches tomorrow.
Sitak is world number number 43 and Daniell 66 in the individual doubles rankings.
"The Kiwis played absolutely unbelievable tennis," Zeeshan told PTI.
"We had just two break points in the entire match. And twice love-30 on their serves, Apart from that they played flawless tennis," Zeeshan added.
Despite the crushing defeat, which was first for the Indian Davis Cup team since April 2012, the Indian camp was quite hopeful of turning it around tomorrow.
Somdev faces Jose Statham while Yuki is set to clash with Michael Venus.
Yuki, who is the only winner so far in the Indian side, remarked," That's how Davis Cup is. You never know. We have been the underdogs before and played well.
This time it's New Zealand. But another day to go and we can still win this." Zeeshan added," The boys are confident. Hopefully we can win both the matches tomorrow."
Asked about his match against clash against his Michael Venus, with whom he had reached the Australian Open men's doubles third round last year, Yuki expected a tough match.
"We have always had tough matches and it will be no different tomorrow but first Somdev has to win his match," he said adding that the "other team was solid today."
"They served well and played better."
