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South Africa: Anderson's Role in Tie is Pivotal
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Business Day (Johannesburg)
18 July 2008
Posted to the web 18 July 2008
Mark Smit
Johannesburg
WESLEY Moodie is still nursing a knee injury so his regular partner, Jeff Coetzee, will pair up with Izak van der Merwe for the doubles in the Davis Cup tennis tie against Denmark starting at Emperors Palace today.
In essence, this means that a match the South Africans would have counted on winning in normal circumstances, is no longer a sure thing.
Van der Merwe and Coetzee have never played under match conditions before, while the Danish combinations have been settled for quite some time.
What this means is that the host team in the Euro Africa zone group 2 clash will be relying more than ever on their big-serving No1 singles player, Kevin Anderson. If Anderson can win both of his singles matches, it will make life much easier for captain John-Laffnie de Jager.
Yet there could still be a twist in the tail. De Jager admitted during team practice yesterday that he was still unsure who his doubles team would be.
Even though he nominated Van der Merwe and Coetzee at the draw on Wednesday, Davis Cup rules allow him to change his doubles pair up to an hour before the match starts.
This means he could still pair Coetzee and Rik de Voest, the South African No2 singles player. These two have played Davis Cup doubles together before -- in a tie against Greece at the Groenkloof a few years back. They played well together, so De Jager is bound to be tempted.
What he might be waiting for, is to see how strenuous De Voest's singles match is today, in his opening encounter against Danish No1 Frederik Nielsen.
If the match does not take too much out of De Voest, De Jager may ask him to play doubles and then see how things pan out for the reverse singles on Sunday. De Voest plays the second match today, so there will be less recovery time before the doubles. But this will only become a problem if he has to play a marathon five-setter.
The Danes have given very little away so far, and there is a low-key look to them. But they are an unknown quantity to SA which is, in itself, a danger.
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Action starts today at 10am with Anderson playing Danish No2 Martin Pederson, followed by De Voest against Nielsen.
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