Pacific Oceania jumps 15 places in ITF ranking

Pacific Oceania moved up 15 spots in the International Tennis Federation Davis Cup rankings to No. 62 following its upset of seeded Lebanon in the first round of the Asia/Oceania Group II Davis Cup held last weekend at the Dr. Robin Mitchell Regional Tennis Centre in Lautoka, Fiji.

The team made up of team captain Jeff Race of the CNMI, top seed Michael Leong of Solomon Islands, Juan Langton of Western Samoa, Brett Baudinet of Cook Islands, and Cyril Jacobe of Vanuatu defeated Lebanon, 3-2, and picked up a whopping 105 points for the victory to end up with 142.8 points.

Entering its tie against Lebanon, the islanders were ranked No. 77 with a measly 37.8 points. Lebanon, meanwhile, fell from No. 57 to a notch below Pacific Oceania at No. 63 with 140 points. The Middle East country lost 70 points because of the setback.

Pacific Oceania was praised for its victory over Lebanon in the Davis Cup website, which noted, “…Pacific Oceania, fresh from promotion from Group III, achieved its first victory at this level against Lebanon and climbs 15 places in the latest Davis Cup Nations Ranking.”

Powered by Leong and Langton, Pacific Oceania surprised Lebanon by sweeping the two opening day singles matches last Friday, March 4.

Leong beat 6’2” Patrick Chucri into exhaustion 6-3, 2-6, 6-3, 5-7, 3-0 (retired) in the first singles match. Langton, for his part, bucked a slow start to drub Karim Alayli 6-7 (6-8), 6-3, 6-1, 7-5.

Lebanon was able to cut its deficit to 1-2 in the second day of competition, Saturday March 5, when Chucri and Jicham Zaatini teamed up to beat Langton and Baudinet 6-3, 7-6 (7-0), 7-6 (7-4).

Pacific Oceania, however, slammed the door shut on Lebanon when Leong once again rose to the challenge, justifying his tag as Mr. Marathon when he triumphed in a protracted match against Zaatani in the first reverse singles, 7-5, 6-7 (14-16), 6-3, 4-6, 6-2, in three hours and 25 minutes.

That rendered the second reverse singles an exhibition match, but just the same Baudinet and Chucri still had plenty of fun with it with the latter winning, 6-4, 2-6, 6-2.

Pacific Oceania is 2-0 against Lebanon in Davis Cup play. The only other time the two nations squared off was a Group III inter-zonal match-up in April 13, 1995.

In that tie, Lency Tenai of Solomon Islands and the late Motuliki Kailahi of Tonga defeated a full squad from Lebanon made up of Karim El Khoury, Toufiq Zhalan, Ibrahim Kahil, and Hussein Badreddine, who returned to skipper the squad this year.