Pacific Oceania adds firepower

Coming off a successful stint against Lebanon, the Pacific Oceania Davis Cup team next faces a tough challenge as they square up against top players from South Korea in the Asia/Oceania Group II tie next month.

Captained by the CNMI’s Jeff Race, the team consists of familiar faces in Michael Leong of the Solomon Islands, Juan Langton of Samoa, and Brett Baudinet of Cook Islands.

The team, however, added firepower for its match against the East Asian nation as West Nott of the Marshall Islands has taken the place of Cyril Jacobe of Vanuatu.

According to Race, Nott was under consideration to play for the team as far back as their tie against Lebanon, but was not able to make the trip, resulting in the selection of Jacobe.

“It’s not that I dropped [Jacobe]…he might be the most talented of all players on the team, but he just hasn’t been competing as much as our other players,” said Race.

The Northern Mariana Islands Tennis Association vice president and many time CNMI national player said Nott has been competing at a higher level compared to the other members of the team, taking part in various pro tournaments in Asian countries such as in Thailand, Japan, and India.

“He’s been competing at a high level of competition,” Race said. “He’s got quite good tennis credentials [but] has never been involved in Pacific tennis before. He discovered us last year and got in touch with me and we’ve been in touch since then.”

At one time, Nott was also ranked among the top 10 juniors in the U.S. He also competed while enrolled at Georgia Tech University

Asked about his chances against South Korea now with Nott onboard, Race said they are definitely still the underdogs and will be facing an uphill battle against the Asian powerhouse.

“It’s going to be very tough. [South Korea] has players ranked in top 100, but I’m not sure which player will be seeing action in our Davis Cup tie. There are rumors that they may field their No. 3 player against us,” said Race.

The same weekend Pacific Oceania defeated Lebanon in Fiji, South Korea gave the Philippines a lot of fits and won their tie, 3-2 in hostile ground.

“If they bring that team, we’ll be quite competitive. [I] Hope they take us for granted and bring a weak team. We would like to catch teams by surprise like that. Like what happened against Lebanon, they took us for granted, taught they were going to wipe us out because none of our guys had ATP rankings, but look where we are now,” he said.