Tennis: NZ withdraw from Fed Cup

Sacha Jones. Photo / Dean Purcell

New Zealand have withdrawn from the Asia/Oceania Group I Fed Cup tournament in Thailand next month after Sacha Jones and Marina Erakovic suffered wrist injuries.

Tennis New Zealand chief executive Steve Johns said the decision had been taken after both players had been sidelined in the last week.

"Marina suffered (her injury) at the Aussie Open in the doubles and Sacha's was a bit of freak accident last week," he told Radio Sport.

New Zealand were due to compete in the competition near Bangkok from February 2-5, but when the draw was made in London on Monday they were missing from the eight-team lineup.

"The decision we were faced with was taking a pretty under-strength team up to Thailand. The week of the tournament costs Tennis New Zealand about $50,000.

"We have such a limited budget available for our high performance programme that we really need to sit down and look at every single dollar that we spend and make sure that we are getting maximum value out of it," Johns said.

He said without both Jones and Erakovic they would not have achieved satisfactory results in the event.

- NZPA