South Africa upbeat ahead of Davis Cup clash against Luxembourg
The South African Davis Cup team will go up against Luxembourg at the Irene Country Club for their Davis Cup Europe/Africa Group 2 tie from 4-6 March.
South African Davis Cup captain, Marcos Ondruska was upbeat at the pre-draw media conference of the Davis Cup Euro/Africa Group 2 tie between South Africa and Luxembourg held in Pretoria on Tuesday.
Ondruska told the media at the Irene Country Club that his team had settled and were in good spirits. “I have a good bunch of guys who are fit, strike the ball well and are happy and the mood in the camp after two days of practise is upbeat”.
Ondruska said that he was on track with his preparations and was confident his team would be reaching their peak by the weekend. “We don’t want to peak too soon so we slowly preparing each player to be ready by the weekend” said Ondruska.
It seemed that Ondruska was still sticking to his plan of playing Tucker Vorster and Lloyd Harris in the singles and Dean O’Brien and Ruan Roelofse in the doubles over the weekend. The Captain has however also brought Keith-Patrick Crowley into the squad and Crowley could play come Friday should any of the named four players be injured or lose form ahead of the official draw on Thursday.
Vorster, a native of Pretoria, said he was happy to be back in his home town and encouraged the fans to come out to support South Africa.
The Luxembourg team admitted that without their star player Gilles Muller being on their side, they had a weakened chance. Captain Johny Goudenbour said: “We are not sure if Gilles will arrive or not but at this stage he won’t be playing and that obviously isn’t great for us. Gilles is a top 50 player with a lot of experience and would bring a strong chance to the team.”
It seems as if the high altitude has troubled the Luxembourgers and made practise very difficult. Luxembourg number one Ugo Nastasi said that the balls were “flying” around the court and high altitude was a big challenge. “The court is fast and balls are flying and it’s taking some time to get used to the altitude but each practise has been better than the last and we are sure we will be ready by Friday” said Nastasi.
South Africa is ranked 56 and Luxembourg is ranked 58 on the Davis Cup world rankings. This is the first time the two nations will be playing each other.
Do you have more information about the story? Please send us an email to editorial@rekord.co.za or phone us on 083 625 4114.
For free breaking and community news, visit Rekord’s websites:
For more news and interesting articles, like Rekord on Facebook, follow us on Twitter or Instagram.
- We have exciting news! We’re offering a free alert to help you always be in the loop. Send an email with the word ‘Subscribe’ to breakingnews@rekord.co.za to receive your free daily breaking news update.
