Lithuania next up in Davis Cup
PLAYINGfive matches without dropping a set is as commanding as victories come, and South Africa obliged with a 5-0 whitewash defeat over Luxembourg in their Euro-Africa Group II Davis Cup tie in Irene yesterday.
A spectator’s monotonous call from the stand for “another one” was duly answered as South Africa’s singles players wrapped up the afternoon in emphatic fashion as they won convincingly to grant the man his wish of an early afternoon braai.
South Africa’s number one player Tucker Vorster first dealt with the unranked Tom Diederich, who surrendered 6-3 6-4 before Lloyd Harris wiped the floor with Alex Knaff 6-2 6-1.
Non- playing captain Marcos Ondruska could not have asked for a better start in charge of the team, with the players clearly enjoying their tennis.
“Going into the tie I thought we had the upper hand but it is okay to just think that but you have to go and do the work,” Ondruska said yesterday.
“I think the guys played at an incredibly high level; we didn’t lose a set in the entire weekend. We had one set that went to a 7-5 and we didn’t have a tiebreaker anywhere along the line.”
The victory puts South Africa on a collision course with Lithuania for a second-round away tie after they beat Norway over the weekend. In 2014 South Africa suffered a 3-2 defeat to Lithuania in Irene.
Ondruska spoke in the week about the youthful look of his team – the teenage Harris’ performance over the weekend underscored their potential.
The 19-year-old has taken comfortably to senior tennis and could be spearheading South Africa’s singles charge for years to come.”I was very happy out there today, I felt very relaxed, the crowd was lots of fun and I was a bit more used to the court and we’d already won the tie,” Harris said.
“So I felt I could play a lot more freely, and I feel I really played well today, not giving him many chances.”
The team in general looked comfortable with each other and there was a sense of cohesion between the players.
“I see great potential in the team in general. Lloyd played really well, yes, but overall I though everyone did an unbelievable job,” Ondruska said.
“If we played every tie here at Irene Country Club, it would be really hard to beat us.”
Ondruska believed Lithuania would prepare a clay court for their secondround tie in July, but he was confident his charges would be able to adapt to the conditions.
“They are going to pick whatever they want to pick in terms of surface, my gut feel is they will probably put us on clay, so it is going to be tricky,” he said.
“The good news is around that time everyone seems to be on clay, so in theory it should even things out.
“Hopefully a lot of the guys will be playing on clay a couple of weeks before to build their clay-court game going into the tie. If that is the case, then I think we’ve got a good chance.”