POWERFUL FOREHAND: Marcus Daniell has been in top form during the ATP 250 tournament in Montpellier, France. PHOTO/GETTY IMAGES
POWERFUL FOREHAND: Marcus Daniell has been in top form during the ATP 250 tournament in Montpellier, France. PHOTO/GETTY IMAGES
Wairarapa's Marcus Daniell has been named in the New Zealand tennis squad which is set to face China in the opening round of the Davis Cup Asia/Oceania Group 1 competition.
The tie will be played at ASB Tennis Centre in Auckland - the home of the ASB Classic and HeinekenOpen - from March 6-8, with a capacity crowd of 2000 expected courtside.
The New Zealand team will be at full strength with coach Alistair Hunt able to play the same line-up which beat Chinese Taipei in last year's playoff tie in Christchurch to keep the team in Group 1.
The country's number one player, Michael Venus, has already impressed in 2015, reaching the second round of the 2015 Heineken Open singles, and third round of the Australian Open doubles. Venus has a current ATP singles ranking of 373 and is ranked 58 in doubles.
Artem Sitak also reached the third round of the men's doubles at this year's Australian Open, and is New Zealand's top ranked doubles player at 57.
Rubin Statham is New Zealand's most experienced Davis Cup player for the home tie, and holds an impressive 21 win/10 loss record in Davis Cup rubbers. After a lengthy injury layoff in 2014, Statham has improved his ATP singles ranking to 581 with a strong showing at the end of last year.
Marcus Daniell is ranked just outside the world's top 100 doubles players at 108, and is ranked 531 in singles. Daniell and Sitak took the ATP Challenger circuit by storm in 2014, and the pair were teamed together for the doubles rubber in the Chinese Taipei tie in Christchurch late last year.
No doubt Hunt will consider "Team Kiwi" for the doubles rubber again.
Making that scenario even more likely is the outstanding form shown by Daniell and Sitak in the doubles at the ATP 250 tournament in Montpellier, France, over the past few days.
At the time these notes were penned they were preparing for the final after impressive wins over hometown hero Gael Monfils and his French partner Dorian Descloix 6-2, 7-6, British fourth seeds Jonathan Murray (Wimbledon doubles champion) and Colin Fleming in a thriller 6-7, 6-7, 11-9 and then, in the semifinal, Slovak Frantisek Cermak and Jonathon Erlich from Israel 7-6, 6-3.
