A capacity crowd will greet Renault SA Davis Cup team at Groenkloof Tennis Club in Pretoria this weekend as they take on Nigeria in a Group II playoff tie.
With the team having trained with newly appointed captain Pietie Norval since Monday, confidence is high that they can beat their African opponents to remain in the group and gain the chance to fight for promotion to Group I later in the year.
Speaking ahead of the tie, which takes place from 1-2 February, Norval explained that training has had to be adapted to cope with the high altitude in Pretoria.
“There is a significant difference between playing at coastal level and playing up here in Pretoria or in Joburg so it’s different how I would prepare the team,” said Norval, who played in South Africa’s Davis Cup team in the 1990s and also famously claim a silver medal along with Wayne Ferreira in the 1992 Olympic doubles tournament in Barcelona.
“The big difference is the rallies are normally shorter when they come up to altitude which means the aggressive part of each player’s game needs to be sharper,” explained the captain.
“It’s way easier to make mistakes up at altitude compared to down in Cape Town or Durban or some of the other coastal regions. So that means we really have to focus on serving and returning.”
Norval added that speedy movement is also vitally important with the ball flying through the air much faster than at sea level.
“The ball tends to be all over you when you’re playing up here and you’ve got to take care of that.”
Norval remains confident that the players have adapted well and the team head into this weekend’s tie as favourites.
“It’s always very difficult to know beforehand how the opposition is going to come out and what they’re going to bring,” he said. “So that leaves us where we can only really focus on what we do and how we prepare. And we’re going to trust that if the guys can deliver on Saturday and Sunday and play close to their best level, it should be good enough.
“But it would be a big mistake to underestimate any team coming out. Anybody can come out and play well. I’ve seen them hitting and playing a couple of points and they actually look good.
“So we’re going to finish our preparation today and tomorrow and then we’re going to trust that what we’ve done is going to be good enough.”
The captain emphasised the crucial nature of this weekend’s tie saying: “If we can get through this weekend, we’ll be looking at a promotion/relegation match for the World Group I. When we all got together a couple of weeks ago that was always the main goal – to try and get South Africa into that group because if we do, we’d be competing against the best countries in the world.”
Meanwhile, Nigerian captain Benson Ishicheli described the prospect of taking on South Africa this weekend as “intimidating”.
“To be honest with you, it is intimidating. [They have] two top-300 players in the world but we’re going to give it our best… The team list is intimidating but we are going to give you guys a good fight,” he said.
Play at Groenkloof Tennis Club begins at 11am on Saturday with the first of two singles rubbers. That will be followed by the doubles rubber beginning at 10.30am on Sunday with two subsequent reverse singles matches.