Sorensen keeps nerve to secure Ireland promotion

TENNIS/Davis Cup: It took five match points before Kevin Sorensen brought a close to what was a most successful week for Irish tennis, a long forehand from his Tunisian opponent Malik Jaziri finally handing Ireland the match and promotion into the Euro/African Group Two in next year's Davis Cup.

At the end of the eight-nation event yesterday, Sorensen, his younger brother Louk, David O'Connell and Conor Niland put Ireland back into the group they were relegated from last year.

The team will once again compete against Davis Cup sides that will regularly field top-200 players.

"A great performance," said non-playing team captain Eoin Casey. "We'd a chance to win it yesterday (against Cyprus) but the boys were a little erratic. It's massive because we went down last year and now straight back up on the bounce."

As it stands, Ireland will now effectively compete in division three of the Davis Cup.

The World Group One contains the top 16 nations with the likes of Andy Roddick, Lleyton Hewitt and Rafael Nadal competing, while below that the groups are split into zones.

Ireland's Euro/African zone has groups one to four, with promotion into Group One now the obvious aspiration for next year's team.

"We will be in with the likes of Hungary and Cyprus," said Casey. "If we get the draws we will compete well and, yeah, we'll stay up, but if we get drawn away and that means clay, it won't be so easy."

For a while yesterday it actually did look easy as Louk Sorensen opened Ireland's day at Fitzwilliam with an impressively one-sided win over Wael Kilani.

Allowing his opponent only three games over 50 minutes, he swept to a 6-1, 6-2 victory.

Elder brother Kevin then stood up and looked like he would continue in the same manner by taking the first set 6-2.

But Malek Jaziri, a talented but on occasion wildly erratic performer, almost hit his way to a third set, which could have made life difficult for the 358th-ranked Irish player.

Taking a 3-0 lead in the second set, Sorensen then handed back his service game as Jaziri levelled the match at 3-3. The Tunisian then broke service for 4-3 as Sorensen expensively netted a forehand to trail for the first time.

Reacting smartly to the mini crisis, he replied immediately to again break Jaziri for 4-4.

At 5-4 ahead, Sorensen then earned two match points on his opponent's serve but just couldn't close out the match.

Two more were provided with Ireland 6-5 up but again the Tunisian proved difficult to put to the sword, breathless groundstrokes and silly errors at the net providing a mixed bag for Sorensen to deal with.

Jarizi gifted Sorensen at least two free points, smashing the ball out of play when a positional volley would have easily won the point. Finally a long forehand floated over the back line, Ireland securing the match and along with Cyprus their promotion into Group Two.

L Sorensen (Ire) bt W Kilani (Tun) 6-1. 6-2; K Sorensen (Ire) bt M Jaziri (Tun) 6-2, 7-5.