The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

AFTER a day off on Tuesday to get acclimatised to the high altitude in Bolivia, the Bahamas will be back in action today in the American Zone III Davis Cup tie.

The Bahamas will take its 1-0 record against Bermuda at the Club de Tennis in Laz Paz before playing Honduras on Thursday and Costa Rica on Friday in their final game of the Group B round robin play.

The playoffs, which will determine the top two teams to advance to Zone II in 2014, is set for Saturday.

“The win yesterday (Monday against Panama) was good. It gave us some confidence,” team captain John Farrington told The Tribune. “It was tough for Kevin Major and all of them adjusting to the high altitude, which was about 10,000 feet above sea level.

“It was tough trying to recuperate after each point because the points are not too long. But still, after playing two or three rallies, you get pretty winded, you’re not able to hit the ball as you would normally do at sea level. But the team spirit is good, they are upbeat and they had a good practice today, so things are looking good for us.”

In their opening match on Monday, veteran Devin Mullings, playing as the No.2 seed, won the first singles 6-3, 6-3, but Kevin Major Jr, playing as the top seed, lost 3-6, 3-6 in his singles match. The team of Jamal Adderley and Marvin Rolle pulled off the doubles 7-6 (4), 6-4 to clinch a 2-1 victory over Panama.

Farrington said there was a reason for allowing Major to play as the No.1 seed over Mullings and it was because of a strategic move to counter attack what some of the other countries have done.

“In the captain’s meeting, they made some changes because some of the players who should have been playing number one have been moved to play number two,” Farrington said. “That doesn’t mean that Devin should be playing number one over Kevin because neither of them have any ATP points.

“We just decided that in the best interest of what the other countries have been doing that we will switch around our players. We have done that to make sure that we get to match up with the other teams. So far, we have done that. We think that each tie will come down to the doubles and so we are trying to make sure that we have a strong team playing doubles.”

Farrington said the majority of the teams were in Bolivia before they got there, so they have been acclimatised to the high altitude. But he noted that the team has done a good job over the past few days making the necessary adjustments and they are ready to play the rest of the tie.

While the Bahamas will be playing for one of the top two spots to come out of pool B, the two teams playing for their spots out of pool A are Paraguay, Jamaica, Bolivia and Cuba. The two teams out of both pools will participate n a crossover playoffs on Saturday. The other teams will play for a final position.