But, jazz converging profoundly into qawwali - that’s an unheard-of preference for a tennis bloke. Now, Karan Rastogi is currently hooked to this peculiar confluence through the song Khoye khoye chaand ki talaash mein - and might even be forgiven the hint of blues in his caller-tune _ as in his tennis.

The 21-year-old is preparing for a Challenger event in Guangzhou, China after two first-round losses in Futures tournaments at Shenzen and Dong Guan in the last couple of weeks. Overtaken by seniority and performance by Rohan Bopanna and Prakash Amritraj, and on sheer efficacy of titles by Somdev Dev Varman, Rastogi also finds himself out of the recently-announced Davis Cup squad - which hurts much. But accepting that 2007 hasn’t exactly been a marquee year, the Mumbai boy is willing to go on wryly with Swanand Kirkire and Ajay Jhingran’s melancholic rendition of that chart-topping number.

The lost moon - as it were, in this case, is the elusive touch, which gave him his highs of the last year: a round win at Chennai’s ATP, the resulting chance of a face-off with Rafael Nadal, and a title on clay in Morocco. Rastogi subsequently made his Davis Cup debut against Uzbekistan, promoted as India’s No 1in the absence of regulars. He lost both, and fought on bravely, yet in vain, in his opening singles against Kazakhstan, before Leander Paes stepped in to play the fifth rubber. The old back-spasms flared up at his home ATP in September - forcing Rastogi to retire from his qualifying match; and as India heads into its 2008 Davis Cup opener once again facing Uzbekistan, the right-hander will be battling to return to reckoning.

The injury setback overcome, Rastogi isn’t sitting and sulking over the frustrating second half of last year. The searching hello-tune, notwithstanding.

“You’ve got to snap out of such disappointments very quickly,” he says pragmatically, adding, “the more you keep thinking about it, the more difficult it gets. You look at where things are going wrong, and look forward to playing the next tournament asap.”

“I’m very disappointed at missing out on the Davis Cup, because one would like to be a part of it, but I simply need to work very hard to get back into contention,” Rastogi admits. The boy with the prodigious double-handed backhand has slipped to 469 in rankings, unable to defend his points over December, still finding his groove after the back problem.

“I spent a month in the US only recovering, and working on fitness after that injury. That was the most frustrating period, but it’s all behind me since I’m fit and finding my rhythm now,” he maintains.

After China, are the Futures in Kolkata and Delhi, followed by the North Africa swing, but the coveted Davis Cup spot will require some solid ranking points to be earned.