India will host Spain in the Davis Cup World Group playoff tie from September 16-18. A 4-1 win over South Korea in the Asia/Oceania second round tie in Chandigarh ensured India a spot in the playoffs.
Though India made it to the playoffs both in 2014 and 2015, losses to Serbia and Czech Republic had them slipping back to the continental group.
Seeded sixth, Spain are just the kind of opponents India have been looking to avoid. With 12 players in singles and five in the doubles top 100 ranking, even a second-string Spanish side could pretty much spell doom for India. The singles scenario looks anything but promising for India. Yuki Bhambri, India's highest-ranked singles player at 151, is recovering from an elbow injury while Somdev Devvarman who's nursing a sore heel is placed at an unimpressive 433 in the rankings.
For greenhorns Ramkumar Ramanathan and Saketh Myneni, who made their maiden live rubber appearance against South Korea last weekend, it could be too tall an order. Even if one were to count out Rafael Nadal, the likes of Feliciano Lopez and Roberto Bautista Agut would be enough to overwhelm India. Non-playing captain Anand Amritraj is certainly a worried man. "Last two years we made the World Group playoff, only to slip back," he said, "It is near-impossible to make the World Group without any of our singles players in the top 100. That's our primary problem."
Reacting to the development, India coach Zeeshan Ali said that they would have to make a call on the playing surface. "We'll have to talk to the players too to see their surface preference. It's going to be a really tough tie to say the least," he said.
In the three instances that they've played each other at the Davis Cup, Spain has won twice. The last time they faced off was at the inter-zonal final in 1965 which Spain won 3-2. India's lone win against Spain came in 1927.