13. September 2025
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Daviscup, World Group I: Switzerland – India, Day 1 (12th September 2025)

Florian Buechtingby Florian Buechting

End of March 1993, Kolkata (at that time: Calcutta), Calcutta South Club. Leander Paes and Ramesh Krishnan beat the superior Swiss team on Indian grass and advanced to the second round of the Davis Cup World Group (which was the top tier of the competition at that time). This one was one of the tie, which founded my love for Indian Tennis and Leander Paes in special. 32 years later, the two teams met again in World Group I (which is not a top tier any more). Definitely, that tie in Biel, Switzerland, was a special occasion to me. The roles were similar to the situation in the 1990’s, when Jakob Hlasek and Marc Rosset had pushed Switzerland into the favorite role. However, the host was not as dominant any more and India had some smaller recent success stories. Here is my report from the first day at the Swiss Tennis Arena.

This posting comes with a section of 719 major size pictures in the sports galleries. 

The Davis Cup coverage from Biel is done in collaboration with

The match reports are taken from my coverage there and might thus be biased towards the Indian team.

 

Swiss Tennis Arena – The Venue

What an amazing address this place has – located at the Tennisweg (“Tennis Way”), close to the crossing to Roger-Federer-Allee (“Roger Federer Alley”). The Swiss Tennis Arena close to the offices of the Swiss Federation. The indoor venue comes with a capacity of 2,500 spectators plus some 200 VIP guests. Obviously, the Swiss Federation was not that optimistic that the arena was packed: there were group package deals as well as free seating in the venue. The hosts chose to play on hardcourt.

While the rather small arena is modern and fancy, there is rather limited parking in the area. Thus, there was a strong advice to use public transport. There are multiple bus lines serving the area. S-Bahn commuter rails stop at Biel Bözingenfeld station. There are other venues around, including the Tissot Arena, a complex for ice hockey and soccer, which also comes with a shopping mall. A fun fact about Biel / Bienne is that it is officially a bilingual city (German / French).

 

Switzerland – India – Team Nominations

Here are the team nominations with singles and doubles ranking (as of 5th September 2025)

Switzerland: Jerome Kym (S #175 / D #223), Dominic Stricker (226 / 205), Marc-Andrea Huesler (227 / 259), Jakub Paul (288 / 79), Henry Bernet (unranked) – Severin Lüthi (non-playing captain)

India: Sumit Nagal (S #293 / D –), Aryan Shah (399 / 531), Dhakshineswar Suresh (626 / 626), N Srinam Balaji ( — / 72), Rithvik Choudary Bollipalli ( — / 71) – Rohit Rajpal (non-playing captain)

Swiss Tennis kept it open for quite long before the tie whether Leandro Riedi would join the squad. Nominally, they also played without their singles top-ranked legend, 40 year old Stan Wawrinka. The hosts felt to be nominally superior against the Indian Tennis Team in singles. India did two last minute moves, bringing in low-ranked debut player Dhakshineswar Suresh in favor of Karan Singh. It definitely hurted Rohit Rajpal’s team more that US Open semifinalist Yuki Bhambri had to bow out, being replaced by Rithvik Choudary Bollipalli.

 

Switzerland – India – Opening Ceremony

Apart from the traditional Day 1 Opening Ceremony, including team presentation and nominations, there was also a demonstration of wheelchair tennis. One of the players on court was Nalani Buob, a Swiss player with Indian roots, who is driving a charity supporting Indian physically limited kids to be still able to play tennis.

 

Match 1  – Jerome Kym – Dhakshineswar Suresh 6-7(5) 3-6

Like in all Davis Cup ties, the lower ranked player of one team faces the top singles player of the other team on Day 1. Debut player Dhakshineswar thus had to face the sharpest knife of the locals, Jermome Kym, in the first rubber. Both teams started with great servers – and thus there were not too many highlights in the first set. Dhakshineswar came back after trailing 0-40 at his second serve – but finally, the remaining games went more or less easy for the server. In the tie-break, the momentum was on Kym first, leading 2-0, but our guy fought back and attacked a second serve by Kym on the net – 2-2. While most of the points were rather short, the tie-break did have a few rallies. In the eighth point, Dhakshineswar converted one of them at Swiss serve – India was in the lead by 5-3. He served for the set at 6-4, but Kym closed up. The next point was finally decided by Suresh’s beautiful lob – Kym’s tweener was just not good enough and India took the tie-break by 7-5.

The second set looked similar. However, Dhakshineswar faced more difficult situations now. Being the first to serve, he faced two break points in the fifth game and two more in the seventh. His strong serve and his wise game always made him find a way out of the tricky situations. It all looked like the set was cruising towards a tie-break again, especially as Kym was rock solid at own serve so far. The more, the Swiss crowd was stunned when the score was 0-40 at Kym’s serve in the eighth match. The Indian underdog went to the net and took the only break of the match. Finally, Dhakshineswar converted the second match point at own serve, going for a huge upset against the some 500 spots better ranked Swiss – 7-6(5) 6-3 for the Indian colors in the first rubber.

 

Match 2 – Marc-Andrea Huesler – Sumit Nagal 3-6 6-7(4)

Now, India’s #1 was about to take responsibility in Biel. And he did with a lot of style in the first set, also profiting from Huesler’s struggle in the first set. Whenever the Swiss was on serve, there were break points for Nagal. Sumit took one of them in the very first game. Even though he struggled to convert thereafter, the Swiss #2 could not really put him under pressure as a return player in the first set. The ninth game sealed the first set for India. Two set points for our team at Swiss’ serve – and Sumit converted the first one.

The Swiss team went for the only option available – and took the toilet break. The loos in Biel are somehow magical, as Huesler played a completely different match. He was extremely solid at own serve and did no longer struggle with his first serve. The issues were on the Indian side, where Nagal had to save multiple break points against his serve. Especially in the tenth game, when Sumit faced a 30-40, the Swiss crowd pushed their domestic player. But while Sumit did struggle in the second set multiple times, he came back whenever he was under pressure the most. Three points in a row was finally the foundation to cruise into the tie-break.

That set-deciding discipline was on the Indian side on that day. Initially, both player scored here and there against the opponent’s serve. Nonetheless, court change was at 3-3 and Indian bench stood and tried to push for the second victory (apart from injured Yuki Bhambri). Huesler served at 4-5 against him. He hit the net in the first point leading to two match points for India. A rally decided the match, Sumit hat the better stroke and sealed the victory – 6-3 7-6(4)!

 

Switzerland – India (Day 1) – Gallery

In the sports gallery, there is a designated major size picture gallery with 719 pictures of this match at

 

Flyctory.com about Indian Tennis

Here are all postings related to Indian Tennis:

 

Sports Posts related to Switzerland

Here are all my sports postings related to Switzerland:

 

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