Johannesburg - South Africa continued to separate the men from the Macedonians as they duly completed a 5-0 whitewash win in the Euro-Africa Group One Davis Cup tie at a sun-baked Emperors Palace on Sunday.

Ultimately, however, it was the outclassed East European tennis players who were scorched to a cinder as Raven Klaasen beat 19 year-old Illija Martinoski 6-2 6-2 on his Davis Cup singles debut and towering 1.95m Izak van der Merwe out-served and out-smarted Dimitar Grabuloski in a comprehensive 6-4 6-0 annihilation that lasted only 45 minutes.

Such was Van der Merwe's dominance over an opponent who became increasingly more demoralised that the first four games of the second set lasted a helter-skelter nine minutes as the loose ends were tied up before what is sure to be a more testing encounter against Belarus in May - a tie that would afford South Africa the opportunity to participate in a play-off for a place in the elite World Group in 2010.

Macedonian team captain Vladimir Andonov showered praise on the South Africans and singled out Rik De Voest "for his brilliance in both singles and doubles", while describing the De Voest-Jeff Coetzee pairing as the best his team had yet encountered in the Euro-Group One segment of the Davis Cup.

The Macedonians' real nemesis, however, appeared the high altitude conditions in which the pace of the ball through the air is a lot faster than they have encountered in Skopje and other areas in the land-locked country of approximately four-million inhabitants where tennis is played.

And, to be sure, while the South African players performed impressively against Macedonia and produced everything that could have been asked of them, it would be folly to over-estimate the success against what was strictly limited opposition in the wider context of international tennis.

The 26 year-old Klaasen has waited a long time to make his Davis Cup debut and appeared nervous against Martinoski at the outset before producing a string of free-flowing baseline winners for an appreciative 1 200 crowd.

"I was self-destructing in the early stages," he admitted afterwards, "and putting extra pressure on myself. But it was an ideal kind of game to kick off my Davis Cup singles career."

Van der Merwe also made unforced errors in the early stages before settling down and dominating the left-handed Grabuloski with an impressive array of well-placed serves.

Indeed, it came as something of a shock when the Kempton Park-born big-hitter dropped service while leading 5-3 in the first set - but he immediately put the record straight by breaking back in the next game.

It was a credit to the South African team that they performed so well without top-ranked singles player Kevin Anderson, as well as taking in their stride the bizarre late withdrawal of doubles specialist Wesley Moodie over what was ostensibly a difference over whether to secure a first-class air ticket or not.

While the tie against Belarus will be played at home, South African captain John-Laffnie de Jager said the venue had still to be decided -although he personally was in favour of remaining at Emperors Palace and playing at high altitude.

Anderson, De Voest, Van der Merwe, Coetzee and Klaasen have all intimated their availability for the clash against Belarus - which looms as a watershed encounter for South Africa after nine successive Davis Cup wins have started the process of taking tennis in the country out of the doldrums in the last three years.