The visiting Swedish Davis Cup team had the first feel of the Indian summer on Monday when their seasoned Andreas Vinciguera suffered dehydration due to the intense heat during the morning practice session.
It was a sudden change in the weather with days of persistent rain giving way to scorching sun, and factor in the humidity, the seven-time champions were truly feeling the heat.
Twenty-four-year-old Vinciguera, 1.78m tall and ranked 433 on the ATP Tour, made the mistake of not having regular intakes of liquid to supplement the loss of salts.
"All these players have experienced different weather conditions but the humidity that is here is probably only seen in the US summer. You have to keep drinking a lot of water but you have to build that habbit," captain Mats Wilander said.
The Swedes nevertheless went through a vigorous session, their first on grass at the NSCI Club courts, a few kilometres away from the match venue, R K Khanna stadium.
Thomas Johansson, their number one singles player, was expected to join the team on Tuesday after a confident performance at the China Open event in Beijing.
The Indian team too was in full swing with Harsh Mankad joining captain Leander Paes, Rohan Bopanna and Prakash Amritraj. Mahesh Bhupathi was expected to arrive on Tuesday.
Wilander reflected on the situation of grass court tennis at the international level and the scene back home.
"We don't have any grass court in Sweden. Our season is seven months of indoor on carpet during the winter and five months of outdoor on clay in summer," he said.
"It is one of the original surfaces and I am disappointed with the way they are making it at Wimbledon."
"I think the serve and volley with a mix of baseline is the best style on grass but it is slowy going away.
"Tim Henman does not find it (the surface at Wimbledon) suited to his style. They have made it very slow, seems trying their best to make sure Henman does not win."
