OMAN, SINGAPORE PROMOTED TO GROUP III
MUSCAT: Oman national team played marvellous tennis to defeat Guam 2-0 in the play-offs of the 2018 Davis Cup Asia/Oceania Group IV competition at the Sultan Qaboos Sports Complex today (Saturday).
The excellent victory helped national team gain promotion to the Davis Cup Asia/Oceania Group III competition in 2019.
In another play-off, Singapore overcame UAE for a 2-1 victory to book their place in the 2019 Group III competition.
As expected, Oman faced big challenge against Guam and thanks to our star player Mohammed al Nabhani our team took a 1-0 lead. In the first singles rubber, Mohammed had to fight for his victory against Christopher Cajigan.
Mohammed lost the first set but fought back like a champion player and saved a match point in the second set before defeating the Guam player in a three-set battle 3-6, 6-3, 7-6 (4).
In the second singles rubber, young Abdullah al Barwani also lost first against Daniel Llarenas, but fought bravely to give our team 2-0 lead.
Later, the teams and the chief referee decided not to play the inconsequential doubles rubber.
Captain Siddiq al Hashmi said: “Obviously we are all thrilled with this victory, a very deserving one too.
“It was a remarkable day. We had some tense moments against Guam who had some former players from Pacific Oceania team.
“But Mohammed really played against Christopher. He saved fivematch points before winning the rubber.”
“In the second match, Abdullah played against Daniel, who once hand a ranking 300. That’s why he won the first set rather easily.
“But I told Abdullah to play long rallies and tire him out. He did exactly that and I am glad our strategy has worked.”
“Now, we will look forward to the Group III competition. We have prepare well for that.”
In the other play-off, Singapore’s experienced player Roy Hobbs gave a good start for his team by defeating UAE’s Abdulrahman al Janahi 7-6 (5), 6-1. to
But in the second singles rubber, Fahad al Janahi kept UAE in the tie with a 3-6, 7-5, 7-5 win against Shaheed Alam.
In the doubles rubber too, UAE’s pair of Omar al Awadhi and Fares al Janahi fought well but failed to stop Singapore’s Roy Hobbs and YuanXiong Hui from winning 6-2, 2-6, 6-3.
In the 5th to 6th play-off, Bahrain defeated Iraq 2-0 with Elyas Abdulnabi defeating Barakat Zainy 6-3, 6-0 and Ali Dawani scoring a 6-2, 6-0 win against Akram Abdalkarem al Saady. The doubles match was not played as Bahrain has already won the tie. 9TH TO 10TH PLAY-OFF Turkmenistan def Bangladesh 2-1. Gurbanberdi Gurbanberdiyev def Rana 6-4, 6-4. Atlymyrat Gurbanov def Ranjan Ram (retired) 5-7, 2-0. Gurbanberdi Gurbanberdiyev/Yuriy Roguskiy lost to Dipu Lal/Sree-Amol Roy 7-6 (5), 6-2. 11TH TO 12TH PLAY-OFF Kyrgyzstan def Tajikistan 3-0. Kirill Kistanov def Shakhrom Umarov 6-0, 6-0. Evgeniy Babak def Firdavs Odinaev 6-0, 6-0. Evgeniy Babak/Kirill Kistanov def Firdavs Odinaev/ Shakhrom Umarov 6-0, 6-0. Mohammad