#New Delhi
India enjoyed a dominant outing, blanking Mongolia 3-0 while dropping just one game, as Zeel Desai secured a straight-sets win on her Billie Jean King Cup singles debut against 15-year-old Anu-Vjin Gantor, before Sahaja Yamalapalli followed suit in the Asia/Oceania Group I tie on Friday.
Zeel drubbed her rival 6-0 6-0 in mere 37 minutes before Sahaja trounced 32-year-old Jargal Altansarnai by an identical scoreline in 42 minutes at DLTA Complex.
Later, Vaishnavi Adkar and Rutuja Bhosale hammered Khongorzul Aldarkhishig and Jargal Altansarnai 6-1 6-0 to complete the rout.
It was not more than a casual hitting session for the home players as unranked rival players did not have the game to hurt them.
India will take on Korea on Saturday, the final day of the competition, in their last outing of the tournament, and most likely, the hosts will keep their place in Group I. For India to make the play-offs, they need Indonesia to beat Korea and then register a 3-0 win themselves on Saturday.
The defeat against Thailand put India in a spot as it hurt their chances to finish in top-two. The top two sides in the six-team event will progress to play-offs while the bottom two will be relegated to Group II.
"We're not going to think about that (Thailand defeat). For us, it's important that we go out and beat Korea tomorrow," India skipper Vishal Uppal said after the tie.
"There's no point brooding over, as they say, no point crying over spilt milk. We lost to Thailand. And from Ankita and Rituja's standpoint, it's a big year. It's Asian Games year. And they definitely probably will go up against the Korean team in Asian Games. So playing them and beating them would be good.
"We lost. So now we move on and we focus on what's ahead of us, not what's behind us. We learn from the past and then just move on." PTI

