Davis Cup: PACIFIC OCEANIA TRIUMPH

Bahrain lost its second consecutive Davis Cup Pool A Asia/Oceania Group IV match 3-0 to top seeds Pacific Oceania yesterday on the second day at the Bahrain Tennis Federation courts in Isa Town.
The Bahrainis lost their opening singles rubber when Pacific Oceania’s Cyril Jacobe from Vanuatu had to come from a set down to beat 27-year old Abdulkarim Abdulnabi 2-6, 6-3, 6-3 in a match lasting a shade under two hours with Jacobe having a 7-6 advantage on break points.
In the  second singles rubber, Heve Kelley secured victory for Pacific Oceania with a 6-7(6), 6-4, 6-2 win despite having to come back from a set down against 20-year old Yousif Qaed who played superbly to win the first set and offered stiff resistance in the second, in a match lasting two and a half hours, with Kelley edging out Qaed 7-5 on break points.
In doubles rubber action, Brett Baudinet from the Cook Islands and Daniel Llarenas from Guam teamed up to defeat 26-year old Hassan Abdulnabi and Qaed 6-2, 7-6(2) in a match lasting around 80 minutes.
The second set was very well contested with Bahrain trailing at 3-5, but fighting back with a break to level at 5-5 and then forcing a tie-break.
In the tie-break, Bahrain took an early 2-1 lead before the Pacific Ocean duo won six points on the trot to win in straight sets.
Bahrain under veteran Davis Cup player and coach Essam Abdul A’al now how a two-day rest and return to action on Friday against Iraq knowing they need to win well and hope other results go in their favour if they are to have the slimmest chance to reach the promotion play-offs.
The other Bahrain squad member is 14-year old squad member Ali Dawani.
Bahrain first played in the Davis Cup back in 1989 and have reached the Asia/Oceania second group on four occasions in the past.
In Pool B, the two relegated teams from 2014 continued their impressive starts with second seeds UAE 3-0 winners over Bangladesh and Singapore winning by the same margin against Oman, with Kyrgyzstan receiving a bye.
Matches start at 10am each day including the concluding play-offs on Saturday with two Pools of round-robin matches until Friday, with the top two in each pool playing off for promotion places to Group III for 2016.
The winner of Pool A plays the runner-up of Pool B and Pool B winner takes on the runner-up of Pool A, while in the classification matches, third place in both pools play-off for fifth and sixth place and the two fourth placed teams play for seventh and eight place, while the bottom team in Pool B does not play and is automatically designated ninth place.

Results: Pool B: Singapore bt Oman 3-0 (Yong Jie Isaac Ong bt Younis Al Rawahi 6-0, 6-1, Roy Hobbs bt Fawaz Mandhry 6-0, 6-2, Shaheed Alam/Sherwin Foo bt Omran Al Balushi/Ahmed Al Barwani 6-0, 6-4). UAE bt Bangladesh 3-0 (Mahmood Nader Al Blooshi bt Sree-Amol Roy 5-7, 6-1,
7-6(5), Omar Al Awadhi bt Shibu Lal 6-3, 6-2, Abdulla Ahli/Omar Al Awadhi bt Shibu Lal/Ranjan Ram 6-2, 6-3).
Standings after two days (played-won-lost-for-against): Pool B: 1 Pacific Ocean (2-2-0-5-1), 2 Jordan (1-1-0-2-1), 3 Iraq (1-0-1-1-2), 4 BAHRAIN (2-0-2-1-5). Pool B: 1 Singapore (2-2-0-6-0), UAE (2-2-0-6-0), 3 Kyrgyzstan (1-0-1-0-3), 4 Oman (1-0-1-0-3), 5 Bangladesh (2-0-2-0-6).

Today’s schedule: (From 10am): Pool A: Jordan vs Iraq. Pool B: Bangladesh vs Kyrgyzstan, UAE vs Oman.