Tennis: NZ hammer hapless Malaysians

It wasn't much of a challenge but a win is a win as the New Zealand Davis Cup team thrashed Malaysia 3-0 without dropping a set in their Asia-Oceania Group II clash indoors at the Albany Tennis Park yesterday.

After the easy straight sets wins on the first day of play by Rubin Statham and Dan King-Turner, the tie was set up for the home side to take the contest in the doubles. King-Turner and GD Jones did so without much fuss.

The match took 1h 44m, with the Kiwis looking like they wanted more of a hit on court.

In reality, the Malaysians weren't up to much and the Kiwi side were efficient in the way they disposed of them, despite the knowledge they were always going to win.

"We're really happy to beat Malaysia and move on to the next round. We felt we played a good, clinical doubles. It's vital to win the doubles in a tie. In a close contest, it gives you that great confidence and in an easy tie, it means you wrapped things up as quick as possible," said Jones, who has seen his doubles world ranking go from over 1300 to 309 in a year after winning three doubles Futures and a big Challenger title.

Jones, 22, believes the Kiwis must improve further to win the next clash against either Indonesia or Kuwait in July in New Plymouth, with the aim of making Asia-Oceania Group I, where even Australia is struggling at present.

Jones will play the Futures events in New Zealand and then four tournaments in South Korea in a bid to raise his ranking.

"We've still got to improve for future Davis Cup matches but we've got the tournaments in the next few weeks. Rubin has improved his ranking a lot in the past year and so have I, so there's something to work on," says Jones, who effectively lost a year of professional play with a groin injury and has an ATP singles ranking of 651, not far off his high of 604.

With the reverse singles now dead matches, team captain James Greenhalgh has the option of giving reserve Adam Thompson a run or seeing if Jones wants to play singles.