Tennis teams celebrate victory
in the Davis Cup in Bolivia and the Federation Cup in Monterrey, Mexico yesterday as both won 2-1.
The men picked up their first win in the Davis Cup when they edged Panama 2-1 and the women enjoyed a similar result in Mexico against Antigua, who they also beat last year in this competition.
Elizabeth Osborne won her singles match 6-0, 6-4 against Isoke Perry before Kelly Holland went down in a close three-setter 4-6, 7-5, 4-6 to Antigua's number one player Niki Williams. Holland and Alison Towlson then teamed up to score a convincing 6-0, 6-0 doubles victory over Francine Harvey and Perry to give the women their first victory in Group Two of the American Zone.
The win by the men kept alive their hopes of staying in Group Three of the American Zone, though the Bermuda players had to pull out all the stops to achieve it after James Collieson went down to Carlos Silva 4-6, 6-0, 6-3 in the first singles match.
Bermuda tied the match when Donald Evans beat Abad Goon 6-3, 7-6 (7-2) in the number one singles tie.
Michael Way and Ricky Mallory defeated Jean Gelebert and Goon in the doubles 7-5, 7-5 to seal Bermuda's first win in Bolivia. In the first set Mallory served two doubles faults to lose his serve and Bermuda were down 2-1.
Everyone held serve to 4-3 and Bermuda broke back to go to four-all. At 5-5 Mallory went down 0-40 on his serve but he and Way came back to win the game in a great display of tennis to pull back to 6-5. The pair than broke Goon to take the set.
Way and Mallory raced out to a 3-1 lead in the second set with a service break before Panama fought back to 3-2 and then 3-3. Both teams held through 4-4 and Way than lost his serve again with a double fault, an error and two great returns.
That put Bermuda down 4-5 but they then rallied splendidly to take the next three games after breaking, holding and breaking again.