NAMIBIAN tennis made history on Saturday when they beat Nigeria 2-1 to qualify for the Euro-Africa Group II of the Davis Cup for the first time.
Competing in Africa Group III, Namibia finished on top of Group B after beating Uganda, Mozambique and Kenya during the group stage.
They qualified for the top spot play-off match and went on to win the title and promotion to Euro-Africa Group II after a great performance by Tukhula Jacobs and Jean Erasmus.
Erasmus lost his opening singles match to Sylvester Emmanuel 6-1, 6-2, but Jacobs struck back with a fine performance against Christian Paul.
He won the first set 6-1 and was leading 3-2 in the second when Paul withdrew due to injury, handing the match to Namibia.
Jacobs and Erasmus then teamed up for the decisive doubles match and in a close encounter they went on to win in straight sets, 7-6, 6-4 to gain promotion from Africa Group III for the first time.
It was a momentous occasion and Erasmus could not hide his pride.
“This is the first time in the history of Namibian tennis that we have been promoted to the Euro-Africa Group II of the Davis Cup which is personally the highlight of my tennis career. It is difficult to express how much this means to us and to Namibian tennis as a whole. We knew we had a good shot and all credit to the Namibian team, especially Tukhula for putting Namibian tennis on the map and taking care of the business. I am so unbelievably happy and proud of our team,” Erasmus said after the match.
“We knew that the stakes were high going into the doubles match. It was important for us to take care of our service games and to stay on the attack just like we did the whole week. We had to execute on the big points, which is what we ended up doing,” he added.
Jacobs was also ecstatic with the result.
“To be honest, I don’t even know what to say. Today is a big day and this is an extremely big achievement for the Namibian Davis Cup team of 2018 and for Namibian tennis as a whole,” he said.
“We just hope that more Namibians will now start believing in Namibian tennis. Today we clearly proved to the nation that Namibian tennis has a bright future and that we cannot do it without the help and funding of potential sponsors, and support from the rest of the nation. 23 June 2018 will forever be a special day for my team and myself – today we made history.”
