Prajnesh hopes to make his Davis Cup debut against NZ

Left handed Prajnesh Gunneswaran, who is coached by Indian compatriot Somdev Devvarman, is hopeful of making his Davis Cup debut against New Zealand in February.

Prajnesh is part of the India squad which takes on New Zealand in Pune from February 3-5.

Talking to media ahead of the ATP Chennai Open, Gunneswaran said: “I hoped that I d be part of the Davis Cup team and represent India a lot earlier, but I ve not been playing so much tennis in the past five years so there were no real expectation of being called.”

“Last one year I ve been playing very regularly and I ve done well and my ranking has gone up, so I realised that I am sort of in contention to be part of the team and to be able to represent India I am so glad.” Gunneswaran (ranked 320), who rose to a career high of 284 in ATP rankings last month said tha “I am still training in Germany but the last couple of weeks Somdev has been helping me a lot and it’s really good.”

The 6ft 2inches tall Gunneswaran, who often uses double handed back hand in matches also spoke about his association with Somdev. “We ve known each other pretty well and he s been around in Chennai for some time and there were few sessions where he was practising with me and then he was kind of helping me a little bit in the stances and it just so happened that he wanted to do a training camp in Chennai for a couple of weeks. He stayed back to organise it and got a few players together”

On whether Somdev is working on something specific, Gunneswaran said, “it s just general, he is someone who has been at that level and he knows what it takes to be there and is very good tactically so he has been helping me with things like that and to understand my game because I am lot older than most players players who have played as many matches as I am are a lot younger. Since I have been injured I have not done that and so my lack of experience in terms of matches relative to my age he is helping me bridge that gap.”