Behind the ever-smiling faces and the earnest attempts to understand and converse in "second language" English, the quiet confidence is easy to miss.

The Japanese are not in the Indian capital with towering expectations or claims, they have lost 17 of the 20 Davis Cup ties against India, and don't have games tailor-made for the grass court that is being trimmed at the R K Khanna stadium in New Delhi.

Only one of the touring party -- Takao Suzuki -- has played Cup ties against India before and their biggest hope -- 18-year-old Kei Nishikori -- last played on grass at the 2005 Wimbledon juniors.

• Davis Cup: India ready to rise against Japan

And yet the Japanese believe they have a chance against a team, which has almost bullied every Asian country at home.

"They play OK," says coach Kentaro Masuda when quizzed about his players. "We don't have a single grass-court in Japan [Images]. The players play only two weeks on grass, at Wimbledon. But they have started improving on all surfaces. Not just baseline, they are playing all shots well.

"[Go] Soeda [Japan's no. 2 player] reached the final round of qualifying at Wimbledon last year. He has a very good return."

Since they are not as well-built as the Europeans or the Americans, most of the players hailing from East Asian countries make counter-punching their bread and butter. If the fitness and calf-muscles of Japan's touring players are anything to go by the Indians can expect some long hard running days out on the court.

Built in a similar mould, Nishikori makes his much-anticipated debut in the April 11-13 tie in New Delhi. He has his grass-court shoes on but still isn't quite sure how he will cope with the new challenge on the coming weekend.

"It's great, first time I will be playing for Japan. There's pressure also," says the bright teenager. "I could have played last year also but couldn't because I was playing tournaments outside.

"I am not used to playing on grass. The surface is faster and there are some technical changes you need to make. The last time I played on grass was three years ago at Wimbledon."

For a player who picked up the game at 12, Nishikori has fast-tracked his way into the top-150. He beat James Blake in the Delray Beach final to become the first Japanese to win an ATP title after more than 16 years. At the Nick Bolletieiri academy, where he still trains, he was nicknamed 'Project 45' -- to beat the highest-ranked Japanese player was Shuzo Matsuoka at 46.

With reputation to back and expectations to shoulder, the youngster will go into the tie having to win both his singles matches.

"There's not much pressure; I see it as a challenge. I am confident and ready to play" says Nishikori, who has played India's No.1 player, Prakash Amritraj, once and beaten him 3-6, 6-1, 6-4 at the 2007 US Open qualifying.

One of the biggest deficits for teams playing against India, especially at home, is that they start 0-1 down most of the times. With stalwarts Leander Paes [Images] and Mahesh Bhupathi [Images] guarding the doubles bastion a lot of teams opt out of the battle and prefer to channelise their energies on singles. But Japan is not conceding any ground, just yet.

"Yes, they are very good players; former world number one, but our team is also good," says the coach. "I don't know the line-up yet but Suzuki and [Satoshi] Iwabuchi are our top doubles players. They won the Tokyo ATP last year and are very competitive."

Masuda admits that after a week-long training camp back home, all the team is worried about is the famous Delhi "heat and humidity."

"But it's not very bad," adds the coach. "I have no idea how the tie will go, but we will try our best."

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