Christchurch - Some gentle arm-twisting might be applied to persuade New Zealand tennis No 1 Brett Steven to play in the vital Davis Cup doubles match against South Korea.
The Asia-Oceania tie was delicately poised at 1-1 here tonight, after Steven's 6-3 6-4 6-4 defeat of Hyeong-Keun Song compensated for Mark Nielson's 5-7 0-6 4-6 loss to Hyung-Taik Lee.
Two of Steven's relatively inexperienced team-mates, James Greenhalgh and Alistair Hunt, are scheduled to play Lee and Yong-Il Yoon in tomorrow's doubles at the WestpacTrust Centre.
Changes may be made up to an hour before the 3pm start, and it would not surprise if New Zealand captain Jeff Simpson checks out Steven's fitness and feelings about partnering Greenhalgh.
Steven, however, was not too keen on the idea tonight after encountering unexpectedly strong opposition from Song, who is 885 places below him on the ATP rankings.
Indeed, Song played only because Yoon - the winner of both his singles in the recent upset of India - has been hampered by a knee injury.
Admitting to being rusty in his first match for almost two months, Steven was understandably not badgering Simpson to be included in the doubles.
"The doubles (combination) will probably stay the same. I'm feeling pretty fatigued right now but the decision will be made in the morning," Steven said.
"This court is very hard on the body because it's laid on concrete. When you haven't played any tennis, like I haven't, the body takes a bit of a beating and doesn't recover so quickly."
South Korean captain Won-Hong Joo is confident his team can win the tie and earn promotion to the world group qualifying round.
He based his judgement on having a "50-50" chance in the doubles, and rated Song and Lee as potential winning prospects against Nielsen and Steven, respectively, in Sunday's reverse singles.
Joo even offered some comments about Steven's age and allegedly waning powers which should have the New Zealand No 1 bristling for the rest of the weekend.
"Last time he was very good. This time he's so-so, not fast. Lee can beat him, I think."
Certainly, Lee was very sharp against Nielsen, after they had swapped two broken services to reach 5-5 in their first set.
That was the pivotal game, with Nielsen saving four break points before succumbing. Transformed from a retriever to a terrier, Lee hammered home his advantage by breaking five of Nielsen's next six serves.
"It was my first time in front of my home crowd. I was nervous and didn't play as well as I could have. At 5-5, when he broke to win the set, I let him get on top of me," said Nielsen.
To his credit, Nielsen fought back gamely in the later stages of the third set. But Lee's 14 aces proved he had plenty of firepower, and there were deft touches when appropriate.
Steven broke Song early in each set, but the tenacious Korean conceded nothing, levelled in the second, and forced Steven to work harder than he had expected.
There were glimpses of Steven at his best, when he thundered four great winners off Song's opening serve of the second set, and in recovering lost ground to rescue many points.
Yet the unknown Korean showed that Nielsen will need to be in tune on Sunday if he is to master this Song.
Davis Cup all even thanks to Steven
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