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Davis Cup team to play second round in New Caledonia
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Posted on Jan 06 2006
The Oceania Tennis Federation executive committee has decided New Caledonia will host the Pacific Oceania team for their second round tie in Davis Cup 2006 to be played in early April.
When the draw for 2006 Davis Cup was made Pacific Oceania was awarded a home tie for the second round. Depending on first round results this will be against Indonesia or Malaysia. The Pacific team has never played Indonesia, which has just been relegated from Group II but has previously beaten Malaysia.
Three nations—Fiji, American Samoa, and New Caledonia—expressed interest in hosting the Pacific Oceania Davis Cup tie in April.
In a perhaps controversial decision, the OTF executive committee chose to award the tie to New Caledonia. New Caledonia is an associate member of OTF and their players cannot play on the Pacific Oceania Davis Cup team, as they are eligible to represent their mother country, France.
The committee thanked Fiji and American Samoa for their bids but decided on Noumea because the complex is already up to standard (Pago Pago Centre Court needs re-building and Fiji courts need resurfacing) and officiating and financial resources are already in place. OTF executive committee did not want to put the other national associations under too much financial pressure nor leave OTF exposed financially.
However, the committee expressed their wish to take Davis Cup to as many nations as possible and urged nations to get their major court up to international standard in terms of dimensions and surface so they can bid in future.
The Ligue Caledonienne de Tennis headquarters in Noumea are in a lovely setting at the far end of Anse Vata beach. There is a two-court stadium with seating on three sides and a capacity of 1,500 spectators. The surface is Rebound Ace (same as Australian Open in Melbourne) and the complex is used each year for an ATP Challenger event as a lead up to the Australian Open. (PR)
