With Rohan Bopanna, Harsh Mankad and Prakash Amritraj not available for David Cup duty, new faces were only expected this time. While Vivek Shokeen and Sunil Kumar Sipaeya too will be making their debut against Uzbekistan, it’s Somdev K Dev Varman who is the real surprise inclusion among the five. The 20-year-old is ranked 50th in the country!

Varman who hails from Assam, trained at the Britannia Amritraj Tennis Academy (BAT) before joining the National Tennis Academy (NTA) at Gurgaon under coach T Chandrasekaran.

Followers of the sport in this eastern metropolis would recall Varman winning the ITF Futures on clay at the Saturday Club in 2004. The youngster then moved off to the US on a tennis scholarship.

Commenting on Varman’s inclusion in the team, All India Tennis Association (AITA) secretary Anil Khanna said: “Obviously, the selection committee and the captain (Leander Paes) think he’s a good player. Somdev won a Futures event at Kolkata. In the US he finished runners-up in singles at the inter-university level and was given a wild card into an ATP event for his efforts.

“The university level there is tough and he made the finals, which is a great achievement. Recently, he won a doubles title at a Futures meet in Florida and reached the quarters in singles.”

Talking about the youngster’s game, Khanna said he hadn’t seen much of the player of late, before adding: “He’s a tall chap, a tough kid. He serves well. And he’s done well both in singles and doubles, so that gives the captain more options to choose from.”

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