A Weekend in Hawera

I spent this last weekend in Hawera, South Taranaki. The reason for this is that the New Zealand Davis Cup team has played their last two home fixtures there (the reasons for this seemingly strange venue can be found here), and this weekend they had a home fixture against the Philippines.

New Zealand tennis is often talked about as being a bit of a joke. Especially the men’s game, which is in a dire situation. Our top-ranked player, Michael Venus, comes in at 305 in the world. Our Davis Cup team suffered the ignominy of being relegated to the Asia/Pacific Group Two (essentially the third division – after the Group One and the World Group) in 2005, and we spent five years playing such tennis superpowers as Pacific-Oceania, Kuwait, and Indonesia.

However, since then, the Davis Cup team has shown signs of a bit of a turn-around. Last year we emerged from Group Two after defeating Pakistan (our first tie in Hawera) and then beating Thailand away, in Nonthaburi. Incidentally, Group One is the same division as Australia and China. In the Group One this year, New Zealand lost 3-2 in Uzbekistan, sending us into this crunch clash with the Philippines. If we had lost that, we would’ve been in a one-off clash that would've meant relegation for the losing team. So this was an important fixture to win, to secure our spot in Group One for next season.

So to win 5-0 was more than a pleasant surprise. On Day 1 Rubin Statham won in straight sets over Ruben Gonzalez, the Filipino number two (who by accounts plays in similar sorts of tournaments as our guys), before Venus beat Cecil Mamiit in the best match of the tie. Mamiit was a former top 50 player, but at 35 wasn’t the force he once must’ve been. You could tell his game was still relatively sharp – just a very good player on the wane. So I thought the theme of the rubber was about our guys in their (erm) peak, against a guy who was much better than them once upon a time, but had lost some of his powers.

Venus won in five sets and did really well to hang in there. It was a positive sign for a guy who probably doesn’t play a lot of long five setters that he managed to maintain the intensity of his serves and groundshots throughout. In the tie against Pakistan last year he went through a similar experience, losing to the veteran of the team in a marathon (13-15 in the final set). So I think he probably learnt from that experience and used it against Mamiit. It was thoroughly enjoyable viewing.

Other than that performance, the most pleasing aspect of the tie was the performance of the doubles-pairing of Marcus Daniell and Artem Sitak on Day 2. They played Gonzalez and Mamiit, and looked the better team throughout. The first set went to a tiebreaker, but they closed that out 7-0, before winning the other two sets easily. And easy as that, the rubber was settled, 3-0. New Zealand were safe in Group One for another year.

Day 3 and the wins kept coming. Given they were dead rubbers the organisers shortened them to the best of three sets; which we dominated. Given the fact we had won the tie, the two final matches went to Daniell and Sitak, the two less experienced guys. The first was Daniell playing Jeson Petrombon, the young up-and-comer in the Philippines side. To be honest, he was pretty ordinary I thought, but he battled to win the first set before Daniell came right and won it in three. As the Kiwi said afterwards, he was poor until he “got angry enough to fire up” and pull through. It certainly was the lowest quality match on offer over the weekend.

For some strange reason, Mamiit decided to back up and play his third match in three days, and played the last rubber. This was despite the Filipino squad having Johnny Arcilla in the squad, who didn’t get on the court at all. Artem Sitak did well to beat the veteran. Artem is actually a very solid player, a big guy with a decent all round game. He's a good addition to the team. I did think Mamiit was definitely tiring by this stage; but I certainly can't blame the guy. He still had class about him, but it was too much for him to do alone. After Sitak had won in straight sets, New Zealand had their first clean sweep of a Davis Cup tie for two years.

So New Zealand is safe in Group One for the year. We don’t have any relegation playoffs this year, and our next rubber in the Davis Cup will be in next year’s competition. Depending on other results, it may even be a dream tie against the Australians. While I'm not going to go around claiming the state of our men's tennis is suddenly in great nick, more weekend's like this will help bring back a bit of faith. I don't think any of our boys will be challenging the world's elite players, but maybe things are on the improve after what has been a fairly dire few years.