Tennis: Blow for Kiwis as injured Jones pulls out of Davis Cup tie

Mark Nielsen, fresh from his victory in a Japanese Futures tournament, faces another hectic Davis Cup tie next week and will not have up-and-coming GD Jones as a team-mate.

Back home yesterday after winning a US$15,000 ($21,200) Futures tournament in Japan, Nielsen and the other three members of the New Zealand team will go into camp on Monday.

They must prepare for the tough Asia/Oceania group two final against South Korea with Nielsen knowing he will have to play two singles and a doubles match.

Jones, 19, has been forced out with a pelvic injury. Tennis NZ are not prepared to risk him and have instead named Nielsen, Rubin Statham, Dan King-Turner and Adam Thompson for the tie, which starts on Friday week at Albany's More FM Tennis Centre.

"The other three players [apart from Nielsen] have all had some Davis Cup experience," non-playing captain Bruce Derlin said yesterday. "Dan has played a live doubles match which he and Mark won. They have all played dead singles matches without winning. It will not be easy and it will need a big team effort to win a place in group one."

Nielsen is assured of the No 1 spot and will almost certainly join King-Turner as the doubles pairing, but the second singles spot is, according to Derlin, wide open.

Nielsen is ranked around 350 on the latest ATP list, with Statham at 658, King-Turner 677 and Thompson 769.

Derlin, who would make the call on the team's make-up, said his players would "play sets against each other" and then discuss things "as a team" before making the decision.

"They are a good bunch of guys and will give it their all," Derlin said. "We know a fair bit about the Koreans."

The visitors, who will be on court today at the start of a long build-up, are led by world No 93 Hyung-Taik Lee, who was as high as No 52 two years ago).

The other players are Oh-Hee Kwon (350), Kyu-Tae Im (365) and Sun-Yong Kim (871), with Jae-Sung An (784) and Woong-Sun Jun (690) as reserves. Nielsen has won and lost against Im this year. He last played Lee four years ago and has a 2-2 career record against him.

"But really, we are not so worried about them as getting our own game right," Derlin said.

There had been thoughts about playing the tie outdoors in Wellington to gain an advantage, but the players preferred to go back indoors at the stadium where they beat Kuwait.

New Zealand have a 7-1 win/loss record against Korea. They last played them in 2001 in Seoul, with New Zealand winning 3-2.