Irish must stay hungry for upcoming relegation tussle

Tennis Davis Cup: The way Ireland's Europe/Africa Zone Group Two Davis Cup division works is that if the team had won their first match over the weekend, against Hungary, they would have moved forward towards promotion to Group One.

Having lost 4-1, they moved back towards relegation to Group Three.

Given the defeats in the opening singles matches and the close doubles encounter on Saturday, Ireland dropped towards the relegation zone play-offs. Non-playing captain Owen Casey and his team will face Ukraine away over the weekend of July 16th-18th in the hope of maintaining their current status.

In many ways the patched-together Irish team were unlucky not to get more out of two tight matches and bring the competition into a Sunday finale.

Kevin Sorensen's opening singles match, in which he went two sets ahead before wilting in five, and the doubles match of Eoin Collins and David Mullins, which also took five sets, could have swung either way. Collins, 35-years-old and stepping on to a Davis Cup court for the first time since 1997, and 24-year-old Mullins, who is also off the professional circuit, came close to pulling off the win, finally going down 4-6, 6-1, 7-5, 1-6, 6-4.

That result meant the Hungarian team had won the crucial three matches from five needed to give them the overall win.

Yesterday's scheduled two reverse singles matches were a formality, Gyorgy Balazs beating Irish number one Peter Clarke, 6-3, 6-1, and the visitors defaulting in the other match, involving Sorensen, because two of their players were injured.

It's important now for Ireland to rebound. Although it is scarcely likely they would have entertained real hopes of promotion, Ireland won't want to slip into a lower division, where they would compete against the likes of Benin, Cote d'Ivoire, Togo and Madagascar.

With Mullins having had just three Davis Cup appearances before this meeting, Sorensen making his debut and doubles specialist Collins called into the team for the week, away from his life as a banker in Las Vegas, Ireland may need a little more.

Possibly the injured Conor Niland and John Doran will come back into the frame. Given the next tie is in July, Ukraine may also play the match on clay, an even more intimidating prospect than the fast, indoor court used in Fitzwilliam over the weekend.

Meanwhile, Greg Rusedski, who yesterday anchored Britain to a Euro/Africa Zone Group One victory over Luxembourg, called for players to be allowed to take supplements, insisting: "We can't survive on bread and water."

Rusedski returned to competitive action for the first time since his drugs test nightmare with a 6-3 7-6 victory over Mike Scheidweiler to wrap up Britain's 4-1 victory.

While he said he was no longer taking anything himself, he wanted the game's governing body, the ATP, to allow certain supplements to be taken.

He said: "I know some of the top players still aren't taking supplements and players cannot survive on just bread and water - we have to have something to help us out because it is a long schedule for 10 months of the year."