Sri Lanka meet Pakistan in Davis Cup Tennis

Sajeewa Jayakody

Sri Lanka will confront Pakistan in the Davis Cup by BNP Paribas Asia Oceania Zone Group II tie, which will be held from February 1 to 3 at the Sri Lanka Tennis Association clay courts. The tie will feature four Singles and one Doubles match and the two opening Singles matches are scheduled for tomorrow and the Doubles match will be played on February 2 and 3.

All the matches will be played on the basis of best of five sets under the scrutiny of Indian referee Punnet Gupta and Sri Lankan Muffadel Hazari and Prasad Jayalatharachchi as the two chair umpires. Dinith Pathiraja will act as the Director the of three-day tournament. Though Sri Lanka used Dunlop ball in the domestic matches, in this Davis Cup tourney, Wilson US ball will be used as the official ball.

As the host Sri Lanka have never beaten Pakistan in the first round of Asia/Oceania Zone Group II in the all four previous meetings, they will be striving to retain Group II status for a third year beating Pakistan.

Sri Lanka team is coached by Swiss Dominic Utzinger, the former coach of Roger Federer. Sri Lanka's top seeded Harshana Godamanna joined the squad after a month from United States. Rajeev Rajapakse is the squad's Doubles specialists, while Amresh Jayawickrema is the fourth player in the squad. Rohan de Silva is the non playing captain of the team.

The opposite Pakistan will be led by experienced Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi, who was finalist in the men's and Mixed Doubles events of the 2010 US Open. He is currently 14th in the ATP Men's Doubles rankings. Aqeel Khan, Yasir Khan and Mohamed Abid are the other players while Muhmamed Khaled is the non playing captain.

The winners of the Colombo tie will meet the winners of New Zealand versus Lebanon Group tie to decide which country stays in contention for Group I promotion, while the losers of this week's two ties will meet in the relegation play off in April.

Sri Lanka: Harshana Godamanna, Dineshkanthan Thangarajah, Amresh Jayawickrema, Rajeev Rajapakse, non playing captain Rohan de Silva.

Pakistan: Aisam Qureshi, Aqeel Khan, Yasir Khan, Mohammed Abid, captain Mohamed Khalid.