You have to start somewhere and a 4-1 win over Kazakhstan is equivalent to getting to the second rung on the Davis Cup ladder for New Zealand.
The Asia Oceania group-two tie was decided when Mark Nielsen and Matt Prentice clouted the top Kazak pairing of Alexey Kedriouk and DmitriMakeyev in straight sets 6-3, 6-2, 6-2 to secure an unbeatable 3-0 lead at North Harbour.
That was a little piece of history too, New Zealand's first Davis Cup doubles win since early 2003.
Kazakhstan averted a whitewash when Kedriouk beat 17-year-old Davis Cup debutant Rubin Statham 6-4, 7-5 in the opening reverse singles yesterday.
Statham was given a chance in the dead rubber in place of New Zealand No 1 Mark Nielsen.
However, world No 425 Kedriouk was too good for Statham, whose ranking is 1067, giving his team some small consolation from an otherwise miserable tie.
GD Jones made it two wins from two matches on debut by whipping Kazak No 3 player Stanislav Bykov 6-1, 6-0 in just 37 minutes, for the loss of only 17 points.
"I'm just happy to get this one out of the way," non-playing captain Bruce Derlin said.
New Zealand now have a home tie against either Kuwait or Iran from July 15-17. Kuwait lead the tie in Tehran 2-0 with rain delaying the doubles until today.
What happens next
* New Zealand will play either Kuwait or Iran from July 15-17 in New Zealand in the second round of the Asia-Oceania group.
* If they win that tie, they are likely to play Korea in the group final from September 23-25 to decide promotion to group one for next year.
* The Kazakhstan tie blooded two New Zealand players in the Davis Cup, 18-year-old GD Jones and 17-year-old Rubin Statham.
