They are facing higher-ranked opposition, but with multiple facets of the tie working in their favour, the Renault South Africa Davis Cup team are confident of putting up a fight in their highly anticipated Davis Cup World Group II clash against Bosnia and Herzegovina at Irene Country Club in Centurion on Saturday and Sunday.
Bosnia and Herzegovina are 19 places above South Africa in the Davis Cup rankings, and they earned a 3-1 win the last time the two teams met in a World Group I tie in Zenica in March 2020.
This time, however, the SA squad have home ground advantage, and national captain Pietie Norval believes they can utilise this in an attempt to reach the World Group I playoffs.
Playing on hard court at altitude, South Africa will be making conditions as fast as possible (including using a quicker ball than they did last time they played) in order to give themselves the best possible chance of securing victory.
“We have been preparing well. We’re very aware of the fact that it’s going to be difficult. On paper they have quite a strong team,” Norval said at the pre-draw press conference on Wednesday.
“We’re pretty much doing everything we can to give ourselves our best chance, and we’re hoping the other guys will struggle with the conditions a little bit, which will give us a better chance.
“But the only thing we can do is take care of business on our side, and we’ve been doing that over the last couple of days, and what’s great is that we have got very close to a full-strength team coming into this tie. Everybody is injury free and strong.”
Aside from the Bosnia and Herzegovina squad boasting a higher team ranking than South Africa, their players are also formidable as individuals. Damir Dzumhur, the visiting side’s top player, is ranked No 105 in the world, while Philip Henning, the home team’s best player, is ranked No 264 on the ATP circuit.
However, turning out against more fancied opposition than some of the other sides they have met in recent years has also worked in the SA squad’s favour, according to Norval.
“What’s different for this tie compared to any of the last three ties I’ve been involved in (as captain) is that we really do know the players way better than before because they are regularly on the tour overlapping with some of our players, and they’ve played against them in certain places,” Norval said.
“So our research going into the weekend is way better and we can prepare better from our side, and as I’ve followed those guys’ results over the last six months they have played predominantly on clay courts, so I’m hoping we will have the slight edge there because our guys are mostly hard-court specialists.”
Zoran Zrnic, the Bosnia and Herzegovina captain, was satisfied with his team’s preparation after they arrived in South Africa earlier this week in order to adjust to the conditions.
He was confident the tourists could dig deep away from home in an effort to crush the host nation’s hopes of keeping their promotion dreams alive.
“We came in advance so we’ve had time to prepare for this important event,” Zrnic said.
“The most important thing is that our players are healthy and we have a full team, so we are hoping on Saturday that we’re going to be ready for this tie.”
The draw for the World Group II tie between Renault South Africa and Bosnia and Herzegovina will be held on Friday.
The first two singles matches will be played on Saturday, while the doubles rubber and reverse singles contests will be held on Sunday.