Taiwan face Kazakhstan in a Davis Cup Asia/Oceania Group I tie in Hsinchuang, Taipei County, this weekend with much resting on Lu Yen-hsun’s shoulders following his heroics at the Australian Open last month.
Asia’s No. 1 ranked player, Lu, is spearheading the Taiwanese challenge in the company of Chen Ti, Yang Tsung-hua and Jimmy Wang. Facing the hosts is a Kazakhstan team which has lost all three of its previous Davis Cup ties against Taiwan, most recently in Almaty in April last year.
Kazakhstan led 2-1 in the best-of-five match tie going into the final day’s singles matches, but wins by Lu and Chen saw Taiwan home.
The defeat left Kazakhstan needing to beat the Philippines to retain their Group I status, a feat they duly accomplished in Almaty last September.
Although Taiwan have home advantage this time, Kazakhstan have boosted their ranks with two Russian-born players since April’s tie. World No. 93 Andrey Golubev changed his affiliation last year and immediately proved his worth by winning his singles and doubles matches in the tie against the Philippines.
Volgagrad-born Mikhail Kukushkin also made a winning start to his Davis Cup career with a victory over Cecil Mamiit in the same tie.
The addition of top 100 player Golubev and world No. 149 Kukushkin means Kazakhstan will be a different proposition to the team Taiwan defeated last year, when the hosts could only boast one player in the world’s top 200, Yuriy Schukin, another Russian “defector” who will be in Hsinchuang this weekend.
The visitors’ team is completed by world No. 407 Alexey Kedryuk, Kazakhstan’s most experienced Davis Cup campaigner who will bring up a half-century of appearances for his nation this weekend.
In Taiwan’s favor is Lu’s recent form, most notably defeats of one-time Wimbledon finalist David Nalbandian in Melbourne and British star Andy Murray at last year’s Olympic Games. These contributed to his current highest-ever ranking of 58.
Eighteen-year-old Yang has also had a good start to the year, winning the men’s singles at the China F1 Futures tournament in Guangzhou last month to earn his first professional title.
The three-day tie begins today at the 7,000-capacity Hsinchuang Gymnasium with the opening two singles rubbers. Tomorrow sees the doubles and Sunday the reverse singles. Play begins at 1pm.
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