Australia won through to the World Group playoffs after wrapping up their Asia/Oceania Zone Group I second round tennis tie with Thailand yesterday.
The combination of Lleyton Hewitt and Paul Hanley had few problems accounting for Weerapat Doakmaiklee and Kirati Siributwong to take the doubles 6-3, 6-1, 6-0 and hold an unbeatable 3-0 lead in the tie.
The doubles triumph followed singles victories by Chris Guccione and Hewitt on Friday.
Australia, 28-time winners of the team event, will now go into next week’s draw for a playoff in September to return to the World Group next year.
Hewitt and Hanley were always in command of their doubles tie against the inexperienced Thai duo, dropping just four games and breezing through the match in just under 80 minutes.
With his victory in the doubles, Hewitt improved his Davis Cup record to 38 wins, which include a national record 32 singles victories and six in doubles.
Hewitt, a former world No.1 and US Open and Wimbledon champion, is not expected to play in today’s dead reverse singles, with Guccione and Peter Luczak likely to get further Davis Cup experience.
Meanwhile in New Delhi, Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi put aside their growing differences to lift India into the playoffs for the first time in three years.
The former world No. 1 doubles pair defeated Japan’s Takao Suzuki and Satoshi Iwabuchi 7-6 (7/2), 3-6, 6-4, 6-4 to hand the hosts a decisive 3-0 lead in the Asia/Oceania Group 1 second round tie.
It was India’s eighth successive win at home against the Japanese since 1961.
India last appeared in the World Group in 1998 and have not taken part in the playoffs since 2005.
Paes and Bhupathi, who won three Grand Slam doubles titles in 1999 before parting ways a year later for as yet unspecified reasons, only team up for India in the Davis Cup, the Olympics and the Asian Games.
They took the court yesterday a day after Paes was quoted as saying in a television interview that the decision to take up doubles was the “worst mistake of his career.”
“Even though everyone advised me not to pick up a rookie player like Mahesh, my instincts told me to take him along,” Paes said in the interview. “Now, when I look back, I regret the fact that I sacrificed my singles career for him.”
Paes later clarified that his statement was taken out of context, saying he regretted only his decision to give up singles in the 1990s to play doubles on the international circuit.
The duo sprung a surprise by agreeing to play against Japan after a bitter row in the previous tie, when Bhupathi joined singles players Prakash Amritraj and Rohan Bopanna in a revolt against Paes.
The controversy erupted when Paes decided not to field Amritraj for the opening singles and questioned his fitness and commitment.
In Almaty, Kazakhstan, Taiwan’s Chen Ti and Lu Yen-hsun lost the doubles match in the Davis Cup Asia/Oceania Zone Group One relegation playoff against Kazakhstan’s Alexey Kedryuk and Yuriy Schukin 2-6, 3-6, 7-6 (2), 5-7. Kazakhstan now lead 2-1.
In Hong Kong, Hussein Badreddine and Jicham Zaatini of Lebanon defeated Adrian Montesinos and Henry So of Hong Kong 6-7 (4), 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 (7), 6-4 to take a 2-1 overall lead in the tie.
In Manila, Farrukh Dustov and Denis Istomin of Uzbekistan beat Cecil Mamiit and Eric Taino of the Philippines 7-6 (12-10), 5-7, 6-1, 7-6 (4), to also take a 2-1 overall lead.
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