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Pretoria - The Irene Country Club in the picturesque Irene area of Pretoria has once again been announced as the Davis Cup venue for South Africa’s tie against Slovenia next month.
The Euro/Africa Group 2 round two tie will be played from April 7-9.
This is the sixth tie that will be hosted by Irene Country Club.
The club is establishing itself as a favourite hunting ground for the South African Davis Cup team and captain Marcos Ondruska is delighted his team will return to Irene to do battle against Slovenia.
“This is a very important tie for us. If we win, we have a chance to play in the promotion round in September against the winner or the Norway v Denmark tie, and that will give us a chance of moving up in the Euro/Africa Group 1 next year. I firmly believe we have a good chance in doing so but we first have to focus on the Slovenian tie and take things one step at a time.”
Ondruska continued by saying that Irene Country Club was ideal for his team. “We enjoy playing at Irene. The court plays well, the stadium is intimate, we get good home crowd support and the hospitality is top class. All this contributes largely to the team’s success and the record shows, out of five ties played at Irene we have won four.”
South Africa and Slovenia have played each other twice and share the spoils. In April 2012, South Africa hosted Slovenia at the Arthurs Ashe Tennis Complex in Soweto and comfortably beat the visitors 4-1. But Slovenia got revenge in September 2013 when they hosted South Africa and on their favoured clay courts they beat South Africa, also 4-1.
Ondruska warned that Slovenia will be a team to watch. “Even though the Slovenians prefer playing on clay, they are seeded two in the group and have two players ranked in the world’s top 200 which makes them very tricky. We cannot underestimate Slovenia and like us they also want a shot at being promoted to Group 1 so I am expecting them to send their strongest possible team. I urge the fans to secure their tickets early as we were sold out in the tie against Estonia and the tennis on offer was world class.”
