It is not easy getting into the shoes of Ramkumar Ramanathan. The 21-year-old has been fast-tracked into the big league of Davis Cup with India missing the services of top players like Yuki Bhambri and Somdev Devvarman due to injury over the last year. It has not been an easy initiation by any means for the youngster, who won on debut against South Korean Seong Chan Hong in Chandigarh in the last tie. When he went to sleep on Thursday night he would have been getting mentally ready for the biggest match of his fledgling career against one of the modern-day legends of the game, Rafael Nadal. But just an hour and a half before this supposed tie, team captain Anand Amritraj walked up to him to inform that Nadal would not be turning out. Instead, Feliciano Lopez would be opening the contest on Friday. One can't be sure if his hopes suddenly rose after the news but the Chennai youngster came out all guns blazing against Lopez. His captain had wanted Ramanathan to get off to a fast start against Nadal and he managed to do the same against Rafa's replacement. At the end of the day, the score will show that Ramanathan lost 4-6, 4-6, 6-3, 1-6 in 2 hours, 24 minutes to Lopez but what it won't reflect is the fight put up by the Indian youngster. In the second singles, Saketh Myneni fizzled out without a fight, losing 1-6, 2-6, 1-6 in 1 hour, 28 minutes to world No. 13 David Ferrer. So, as expected, India are down 0-2 after the first day of this World Group play-off tie. Even though results were along predicted lines, the bright spot of the day for the hosts was world No. 203 Ramanathan, who gave the crowd lots to cheer even in the absence of Rafa. The Chennai lad matched the world No. 26 shot for shot from the back of the court - at least early on in the tie. The match was level at 2-2 after the first four games of the tie before Lopez changed a gear.

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