SA in favourable position in Davis Cup tie against Slovenia
There were plenty of tension and drama on the first day of the Davis Cup tie between South Africa and Slovenia in Irene.
Pretoria’s tennis enthusiasts, who attended Friday’s opening day of the Davis Cup action between South Africa and Slovenia in Irene, could not have asked for better value for their money.
South Africa’s two singles players, Lloyd Harris and Nic Scholtz have both defeated their opponents on a day of action, tension and drama to put the home team in a favourable position at two points to zero in the tie after the first day’s play.
The day’s play started at 15:00 with the first singles rubber between South Africa’s number one player, Harris, and Mike Urbanija from Slovenia. The latter is not Slovenia’s real number two in terms of his world ranking, but his was a surprising choice of captain, Blaz Trupej, despite the fact that he is 65 places lower on the world rankings than his teammate, Tomislav Ternar.
Ternar will be in action in the doubles game on Saturday, when he will team up with Slovenia’s fourth best player, Tilen Zitnik, to take on South Africa’s proven combination of Raven Klaasen and Ruan Roelofse.
Harris needed less than an hour and a half to defeat Urbanija in straight sets (6-1; 6-1; 6-2) in a one-sided game in which the helpless Slovenian did not have any answers against the young South African’s excellent game.
On the other hand, Scholtz and his opponent, Grega Zemlja, was involved in the spectacle of the day that had the spectators on the edge of their seats. The expectation beforehand was that Scholtz will offer good resistance, but that he eventually would not be good enough to beat Zemlja, who is currently exactly 300 places higher on the world rankings than him.
Zemlja also started well and won the first set quite easily 6-3. In the second set Scholtz played better and he even broke his opponent’s serve in the eighth game. However, Zemlja immediately hit back and broke Scholtz’ serve in the ninth game. He eventually won the second set 7-6 after winning the tie-breaker easily 7-1.
But Scholtz was not prepared to give up yet and he showed his true steel from the third game. While he was busy setting behind the tree-filled background at the Irene Country Club, the lanky Capetonian started playing with more confidence and his opponent could never break his serve again. The last three sets all went according to the players’ serve and had to be determined by tie breakers.
Scholtz showed nerves of steel and he was able to bite the bullet three times to win all three tie breakers. Even when he was 2-4 behind in the tie-breaker of the fifth set, he fought back. At 6-all Zemlja cracked and made a double fault on his own serve. Scholtz could then serve on match point, and just as light rain started sifting down on the court, he clinched victory.
The doubles game will start at 15:00 on Saturday.
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