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The University of Mississippi Athletics
Rebel Standouts Represent Home Nations in Davis Cup
9/14/2017 | Men's Tennis
OXFORD, Miss. â€" In the closest thing to college tennis there is in professional tennis, Davis Cup is back this weekend across the world with Ole Miss men's tennis standouts Nik Scholtz and Mahesh Bhupathi looking to lead their respective countries.
Scholtz to lead off South Africa…
Scholtz and his teammates from South Africa will face off against Denmark with a promotion into the Euro/Africa Group I on the line.
A regular now on the South Africa Davis Cup team, Scholtz captured the hearts of his country when he rallied to win a thrilling five-setter in their last match against Slovenia back in April, to help lead South Africa to a commanding win and into the Group II playoff.
Scholtz will lead South Africa off first against Denmark's Frederik Nielsen Friday in Aarhus, Denmark.
"I'm pleased to start because that gives me the chance to provide the team with momentum to carry into the next singles match later on," Scholtz said. "But really it doesn't make a difference for me because I prefer playing first rather than waiting for the first match to finish."
Captain Bhupathi…
It's been a whirlwind couple of weeks for Bhupathi, who was inducted into the Ole Miss M-Club Hall of Fame the first weekend of September and then headed off to New York where the India Davis Cup team trained indoors at Columbia University for its upcoming tie with Canada.
Bhupathi was named captain of the team at the beginning of the year and in his first tie as the captain, led India to a 4-1 win over Uzbekistan and promotion to the World Group Playoffs.
India faces a Canadian team minus stalwart Milos Raonic, but with world No. 51 Dennis Shapovalov, who reached the fourth round of the US Open.
"Canada is a quality team but we are here because we earned the chance to play them," Bhupathi said. "The week of practice indoors has helped the team. The boys have hit a lot of balls and are feeling good, so we are looking forward to the weekend."
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Players Mentioned
