Pinoys, Kiwis optimistic of chances

BOTH the Philippines and New Zealand teams competing in the final tie of the Davis Cup Asia Oceania Group 2 are optimistc of their chances for this weekend’s annual international tennis tournament to be held at the Plantation Bay Resort and Spa in Lapu-Lapu City.

Members of the Cebuana Lhuillier Philippine Davis Cup team started arriving last weekend while the New Zealand Davis Cup team arrived last Monday.

The Filipinos lead the Kiwis, 3-2, in their head-to-head but the latter blanked the Philipines, 5-0, in their most recent meeting in 2011.

On paper, the Kiwis have an advantage as New Zealand’s no.1 player Rubin Statham will be seeing action in place of Darrel Turner King, who announced his retirement last July.

All of the New Zealand netters are also ranked among the top 500 in the world with Statham ranked 293rd.

The rest of the players are Mike Venus (372), Marcus Daniel (586) and Artem Sitak (447).

Venus, New Zealand’s no.2 player, will be playing for the first time in the Philippines while the rest have already played in Manila a couple of years ago.

Despite the hyped up lineup of New Zealand, the Philipine team is unfazed. Team captain Roland Kraut said that come Friday, the rankings won’t matter anymore.

“On paper, they have the advantage. They are ranked no. 1 in Group 2 and their singles players are ranked in the top 500 in the world,” Kraut said. “But come Friday it will be man to man.”

Although the Philippines only has two players with world rankings—Ruben Gonzales (933) and Treat Conrad Huey (1,132)—the whole team has an advantage of playing in familiar territory. Plantation Bay’s shell-clay court has been the team’s venue twice this year alone, against Syria in the first round and against Thailand in the second round.

The team is also banking on the crowd support and chemistry since most members of this team have been together since the first round tie.

Aside from Gonzales and Huey, the Philippines will be manned by Johnny Arcilla and Francis “Casey” Alcantara, the same lineup that defeated Thailand, 4-1. This is also almost the same lineup that vanquished Syria, 3-2, except that it was Elbert Anasta playing in place of Alcantara. /CORRESPONDENT MARS G. ALISON