Rutuja Bhosale (foreground) and Vaishnavi Adkar in action against Mongolia’s Khongorzul Aldarkhishig and Jargal Altansarnai at the DLTA Complex in New Delhi on Friday, April 10. Photo: Rahul Goyal/Camshut

India on Friday overwhelmed punching bags Mongolia 3-0, which gave Vishaal Uppal’s side an outside chance of qualifying for the World Group Playoffs in the Billie Jean King Cup women’s team tennis competition.
Zeel Desai, playing her first singles in the blue jersey after coming in for Vaishnavi Adkar, double bagelled Anu-Vijn Gantor before Sahaja Yamalapalli meted out the same treatment to Jargal Altansarnai in the Asia-Oceania Group 1 tie at the DLTA Complex in New Delhi.
The minnows registered themselves on the scoreboard in the doubles rubber, which Vaishnavi and Rutuja Bhosale won 6-1, 6-0 against Khongorzul Aldarkhishig and Altansarnai.
Despite the domineering performance, the hosts languish in fourth place in the six-team field. To advance to the Playoffs in November, Uppal’s ladies will have to finish in the top two.
That means repeating their Friday’s dominant performance against Korea Republic (currently second in standings) and hope the outcome of the Thailand vs table toppers Indonesia go their way on Saturday, the concluding day of the tie.

Sahaja Yamalapalli in action against Jargal Altansarnai of Mongolia. Photo: Rahul Goyal/Camshut

In the event of three or more teams being tied on number of points while deciding the final placing, the tie will be broken by applying: i) most percentage of matches won; ii) most percentage of sets won; iii) most percentage of games won.
If the teams are still tied, then their ranking would come in to play, and here is where India stand a chance as they are the highest ranked team in the fray — ranked 28th ahead of New Zealand (31), Thailand (32), Korea (35), Indonesia (41) and Mongolia (45).
India had lost to Indonesia and Thailand, but the head to head wins will come into play only after above criteria are applied and still two teams are deadlocked.
Whether those defeats will come to rankle is a moot point at this stage since there is still a lot of tennis to be played.
“There’s no point brooding over, as they say, no point crying over spilt milk. We lost to Thailand. So now we move on and focus on what’s ahead of us, not what’s behind us. We learn from the past and then just move on,” said Uppal.