the media had predicted that india @ the end of the 1st day would be tied 1-1 or would be 2-0 ahead.the reasons cited was that the brazilians would not be able to handle chennai's humidity,their players are more comfortable on clay courts,home support for the indians. the exact opposite happened,& india is 0-2 down;brazil is a tropical country,humidity there in rio or sao paulo is similar to chennai/mumbai.secondly belluci & mello are regular ranked singles players who are constantly playing in the ATP tournaments, whereas bopanna hardly plays single matches, & being ranked 499 has no chance of clashing against class players. dev varman though plays singles,but he has to go thru qualifying rounds to enter the main draw,thus his exposure to play against players of class like federer,nadal,djokovic,murray,roddick,davydenko,berdych etc are remote, which is not the case with both mello & belluci.had this match been played anywhere except india, the brazilian duo would have won in straight sets, the home support & constant chattering & yelling by the crowd helped the indians to stretch the matches upto the 5th set.
for the crowd and the players sake, india could still win the tie. all they have to do is not to think about anything but concentrate on each and every point hard and practicing atleast few hours with great determination and a small rest before going into the match
