CHENNAI: The Espoo Metro Arena, located in the city of Espoo, is well known across Finland. The venue used to play host to Espoo Blues, one of the country’s ice hockey clubs.
The Arena also conducts concerts. Over the last week or so, the venue has undergone a transformation. The goalposts have been removed and the ice has been transported out.
In its place, a wooden plank has been installed, a carpet has been positioned and a net has been placed.
The venue is now ready to host the two-day Davis Cup 1st Round tie between India and Finland, beginning on Friday.
While the venue was being given a cosmetic makeover, India had a few practice sessions at a private club earlier in the week.
“We have been practicing here at a private club in Helsinki because the match courts were not ready,”AIl-India Tennis Association joint-secretary Sunder Iyer, who has travelled with the team, told this daily.
“We started practicing at the venue from Tuesday. We will all be in a bubble for the duration of the tie (Tuesday to Saturday). The whole team has assembled here, they are in good spirits, we had a great official dinner too. They are all fit, fine and hitting well at this moment.”
When they shifted to the match courts on Tuesday, the team were surprised, in a good way, about the way the surface was behaving.
“The bounce is pretty slow and low so that’s good for us,” team captain Rohit Rajpal told this daily. It’s good from an Indian point of view because both Prajnesh Gunneswaran and Ramkumar Ramanathan, the country’s lead singles players, ‘hit the ball flat’, Rajpal explained.
This sort of advantage, away from home, is always welcome. Especially when there is a top-100 (Emil Ruusuvuori) nominated singles player in the opposition ranks.
“It’s always tough to prepare a team, especially playing against an opposition that has a player in the top 100,” says coach, Zeeshan Ali.
“If you look at it in terms of ranking, we are the underdogs. One of their singles players is ranked in the top 70. Their doubles combination has higher combined ranking than our top two. Of course playing away from home is always tough,” Ali said.
“It’s going to be a tough tie. We need to win at least one singles match on the first day. The boys are hitting the ball well. They are feeling healthy at the moment.”