Oman end Davis Cup Juniors campaign

Muscat: Oman’s national U16 boys’ tennis team has concluded its participation in the Davis Cup Juniors tournament, which was hosted in Colombo, Sri Lanka, with the participation of 15 teams. The Omani team played a number of competitive matches during the event, while Malaysia and Vietnam eventually secured qualification to the Davis Cup Juniors final qualifying stage.
The Omani delegation included Ahmed bin Ibrahim al Balushi as head of delegation, players Moataz bin Issa al Mazroui and Abdulrahman bin Ahmed al Rahbi, and coach Soufiane.
The participating teams in the tournament were Oman, Sri Lanka, Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Turkmenistan, Macau, the Philippines, Guam, Mongolia, Pacific Oceania, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar and Nepal.
Oman competed in a group that included second-seeded Singapore, sixth-seeded Turkmenistan and Myanmar. The team lost all of its group-stage matches before moving into the placement rounds, where it recorded two wins beating Guam 3-0 and Nepal 2-0.
National team coach Soufiane Doub said the participation was beneficial for the Omani players, who gained valuable technical experience through a number of matches. He noted that the team had been aware of the strong level of competition in the tournament and the technical gap between Oman’s players and some of the other teams, particularly those with higher-ranked players such as Malaysia and Vietnam.
He added that Oman’s players delivered a good performance overall and showed clear improvement from one match to the next, stressing that age-group players need such tournaments and overseas participation to continue developing their technical level. He said the main objective of the team’s participation was to gain as much technical benefit as possible.