Tennis: Long road back

New Zealand took their first tentative steps to regaining respectability in world tennis when they took an unassailable 3-0 lead in their Davis Cup tie against Kazakhstan yesterday.

It was hardly a tie that excited the public and even the Kazakhstan No 3 was caught asleep as his team-mates lurched to a straight sets 6-3, 6-2, 6-2 loss to the New Zealand pairing of Mark Nielsen and Matt Prentice in the doubles.

After the disappointment of last year when New Zealand were relegated to the second tier of the Asia/Oceania group, captain Bruce Derlin has talked about "rebuilding" for the future.

Significantly, it was an 18-year-old, GD Jones, who set up the win when he picked up the scalp of Kazakhstan No 1 Alexey Kedriouk on Friday, putting New Zealand in a strong position to take out the tie on only the second day.

It means that Kiwi No 1 Nielsen will take a well-earned rest today in the reverse singles to allow 17-year-old Rubin Stratham to make his Davis Cup debut before Jones rounds out the tie.

Despite trailing 0-40 in the opening game of the match, Nielsen and Prentice were rarely troubled yesterday as they played with more authority and consistency against relatively weak opposition. Kedriouk showed glimpses of the form that has elevated him to No 425 in the world but he was also guilty of trying too hard in an effort to keep his country in the tie.

Nielsen served out the match to win in only one hour and 35 minutes but not before a small section of the 200-strong crowd, in the absence of support from the sleeping Kazakhstan No 3, to voice encouragement for the visitors in the hope of seeing more tennis.

Delin was complimentary of the "professional" approach of his side in rounding out the tie and is eyeing up a clean sweep today before turning his attentions to the next round. New Zealand are likely to host Kuwait, who held a 2-0 lead over Iran yesterday, in four months.

"We want to get back [to the Asia/Oceania Group 1] but we're just taking it one tie at a time," Derlin said.

"It's good to win but it was also the way the guys won. It was a very professional approach and good teamwork."

Teamwork is something that has been lacking in New Zealand tennis in the past 12 months with claims and counter claims from some of the country's top coaches and, while it's far from rosy, there was at least something to crow about on the court yesterday.