Routliffe in final in Egypt

New Zealand’s Erin Routliffe has won through to the final at the ITF Futures tournament in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt.

The 22-year-old beat China’s YeXin Ma 6-3 7-6 (8-6). Routliffe served superbly, getting a high first serve percentage in, 70% and converted 5 of her 7 break point chances in the match.

The Kiwi No 2 was to play American qualifier Nadja Gilchrist for the title.

Routliffe, who turned pro last year, will likely rise more than 100 places in the rankings if she wins the tournament from her current position of 778.

After the final Routliffe will head to Bahrain to meet up with the New Zealand Fed Cup team for the Asia Oceania Group Two tournament from February 6-10.

Meanwhile, New Zealand have lost their Davis Cup tie to China, with of all things, a defeat in the doubles costing them dearly.

On Saturday Artem Sitak and Marcus Daniell were beaten in the doubles 6-4 6-4 to Gong Mao Xin and Zhang Ze, which was followed by Rubin Statham losing to Wu Yibing 1-6 6-3 6-4.

Having completed the first day of the tie in Tianjin at 1-1, thanks to a superb 2-6 6-4 6-4 win over Wu Di in the opening rubber, this looked like being a tie within New Zealand’s grasp.

Thanks to having three worldclass doubles players, New Zealand hadn’t lost a doubles rubber since 2014, so a win was expected, and then a victory in just one of the two remaining singles rubbers would have secured the tie.

Great plan, but the straight-set doubles loss meant New Zealand were in a desperate position.

‘‘It’s one of those things,’’ New Zealand Davis Cup captain Alistair Hunt said of Sitak and Daniell’s defeat.

‘‘They didn’t really fire and they’d had four years without losing a match.

‘‘Today wasn’t their day, it’s just tennis and it’s Davis Cup - the other guys played pretty well at some points.

‘‘When our guys were playing well, they got a bit lucky and it was one of those things where it looked like it wasn’t meant to be.‘‘