Kiwis dip out in qualifying for men’s open

Three New Zealanders played in the second round of qualifying at the Heineken Open yesterday and all three lost.

It was a sadly familiar story at the North Harbour Tennis Centre, where the tournament’s qualifying tournament has been taking place, but such was the difference in the rankings between the Kiwis and those they were up against that it’s no surprise that none of them even won a set.

Michael Venus, ranked 515, lost to Jesse Levine (104) from Canada 6-0 6-3, the unranked 17-year-old Cameron Norrie lost to Matwe Middelkoop (251) from the Netherlands 6-3 6-0, while Sebastian Lavie (789) went down 6-3 7-5 to Germany’s Benjamin Becker (65) 6-3 7-5.

Norrie is New Zealand’s most promising junior and this was his first match at the senior level, so there wasn’t any expectation on him to get a result.

It would have been a good experience for him before he plays in the Australian Junior Open in a couple of weeks.

Despite losing, it was an impressive performance from Lavie, who fought back from being 0-5 down in the first set. He made the experienced German work hard for the win and says he’ll take confidence from this when he heads back to the Futures circuit.

‘‘It took me a while to get into it and I wasn’t happy with the way I started, but at 0-5 I tried to keep on fighting, not for the first set but to get a bit of rhythm,’’ Lavie said.

‘‘I started to play better but didn’t serve well enough to win the set.

‘‘I don’t get any ranking points for this but I know I’ve got the game and this is a bit of a confirmation for me that I just need to improve on a few things and then I’ll hopefully start moving up the rankings.’’

Meanwhile, Tennis New Zealand chief executive Steve Johns says he will seek a meeting with New Zealand No 1 Rubin Statham to find out why he’s walked out of the Davis Cup team for next month’s tie against Lebanon.

Statham played in New Caledonia last week, when he reached the final of the doubles with fellow Kiwi Artem Sitak and he has only been offered a doubles wildcard for the Heineken Open.

As New Zealand’s highest ranked player, at 362, Statham will be missed in the Davis Cup side and Johns says he doesn’t know why he no longer wants to play for his country.

‘‘I haven’t spoken to him directly about it,’’ Johns said.

‘‘From what I understand he wanted to play some challenger tournaments around that time instead of the Davis Cup

‘‘He is arriving back in Auckland in the next couple of days and I’ll catch up with him then.’’

It is believed there’s an issue with the players over how much money they get for playing Davis Cup, as Tennis NZ has dropped their player payments because the team is now in Asia/Oceania Group 2, having been relegated last year.

‘‘It is no different to the policy we’ve had for a number of years where the payments they get when we’re in group two is less than when we’re in group one,’’ Johns said.

‘‘So the incentive is there for the guys to get us back into group one, to get the bigger money.

‘‘They are still going to be earning significantly more the week of the Davis Cup than if they were out on the road and playing in a normal tournament.’’