Pacific Oceania Davis Cup team finalized

Pacific Oceania’s five-man team to the Asia/Oceania Group 2 Davis Cup competition has been finalized after two candidates withdrew from consideration.

Team captain Jeff Race of the CNMI has named holdovers Brett Baudinet of Cook Islands, Juan Langton of Samoa, Michael Leong of Solomon Islands along with new addition Cyril Jacobe of Vanuatu to the squad.

Pacific Oceania will play seeded nation Lebanon in Lautoka, Fiji, in the first round of Asia/Oceania Group 2 Davis Cup in 2005.

The first round ties will be played over three days from March 4 to 6. Two singles matches will be played on Friday, the first day, one doubles on Saturday, and finally two reverse singles on Sunday, March 6.

According to Race, Muka Godinet and Sanjeev Tikaram were also considered for the team but withdrew because of prior commitments for the scheduled warm-up tournaments next month.

The Pacific Oceania team will meet in Auckland, New Zealand on Feb. 10 and play two ITF Futures Circuit events there, one in Hamilton and the other in North Harbour prior to traveling to Fiji for the Davis Cup.

Race said the warm-up tournament would give the young Pacific Oceania team experience against international players of the standard they can expect from Lebanon during the tie.

He also said that the tie with Lebanon is the first time that Pacific Oceania has been awarded choice of ground and hence the right to stage a tie at a venue of its choice in the Pacific.

Race said Oceania Tennis had also received expressions of interest from American Samoa and Fiji Tennis Associations and after venue inspections, it was decided to go with the Regional Training Centre in Lautoka, Fiji.

According to the Oceania Tennis report, the courts at Lions Park in American Samoa need some upgrading and so were ruled out for the first tie. The association, however, said that if work were undertaken in the early part of the year, it would be considered seriously for a possible second tie this year.

With Leong, Baudinet, and Langton cooking up a storm and Race expertly guiding the squad on the sidelines, Pacific Oceania advanced to Asia/Oceania Group 2 play last April. The team was able to do this after being one of the two top finalists in the Asia/Oceania Group 3 competition held at the Phu Thu Tennis Center in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam last summer.

Leong, Langton, Baudinet, and Race went 4-0 in Pool B defeating Tajikistan, Syria, Bahrain and host Vietnam before losing to Pool A topnotcher Kazakhstan in the finals.

If Pacific Oceania beats Lebanon they would have an away tie with the winner of the match between Korea (the No. 2 seed) and the Philippines. Meanwhile, if Pacific Oceania losses then the second round tie would be at home against the loser of the Korea/Philippines match up. The second round ties will be played from July 15 to 17.

Australia and New Zealand have also been awarded home ties in the first round. Australia will host Austria in the first round of the World Group. New Zealand was relegated to Group 2, the same as Pacific Oceania, when they lost their relegation tie to Pakistan, 3-2, in Islamabad last year. They are top seeds in Group 2 and will host Kazakhstan in the first tie between these two nations. They will face either Kuwait or Iran in the second round.