Turkmen tennis players began their campaign in the zonal tournament of the Davis Cup, held in Isa Town (Bahrain), with wins over the teams of Chinese Macau and Mongolia, both with a score of 2:1.
In Asia and Oceania Group V, where our compatriots are competing, 15 teams are fighting for promotion, divided into four groups.
The Turkmenistan team is in Pool "B," the strongest group in the tournament, along with teams from the Philippines, Chinese Macau and Mongolia.
The compositions of the other groups are as follows: Pool "A" – Guam, Nepal, Brunei; Pool "C" – Northern Mariana Islands, Laos, Maldives, Bhutan; Pool "D" – Bahrain, Yemen, Bangladesh, Tajikistan.
The winners of the groups will advance to the playoffs, and two winners from there will earn the right to play in the Asia and Oceania Group IV next year.
The Turkmenistan team at Davis Cup consists of Yuriy Rogusskiy, Meylis Orazmuhammedov, Gurbanberdi Gurbanberdiyev and Hadzhymyrat Charyyev. The team captain is Mirali Gasanov. The delegation leader is Eziz Dovletov, Chairman of the Turkmenistan Tennis Federation.
In the opening match against Macau, Turkmenistan took a 1:0 lead after Yuriy Rogusskiy defeated Ioi Tou Cheong 6:2, 6:3. In the second singles match, Meylis Orazmuhammedov lost to Kyle Lok Yin Tang 2:6, 5:7, leveling the match score at 1:1. The decisive match was the doubles, where Macau's team leading with the score 6:4 in the first set and trailing 0:2 in the second set, refused to finish the match and eventually received a technical defeat.
The match against Mongolia, which our team have already defeated at the Davis Cup in 2021 and 2022 with the same score 3-0, followed a similar scenario to that against Macau. In the first singles match, Yuriy Rogusskiy easily defeated Zolbadar Urnukh 6:2, 6:2. In the second match, Meylis Orazmuhammedov lost to Undrakh Purevdorj 6:7, 6:0, 4:6. In the third doubles match, our team leaders came back after losing the first set to Khatansuikh Batbayar and Undrakh Purevdorj 5:7 to win the next two sets 6:4, 6:2 and secure their second victory in the tournament.
The next opponent for Turkmenistan will be the Philippines team, which won its first two matches against Mongolia and Macau with identical scores of 3:0.
Turkmenistan’s tennis players have been participating in the Davis Cup since 2004. In 2012 at a zonal tournament in Group IV in Doha (Qatar), they reached the playoffs for the first time but lost to Cambodia 0:3 in their bid for promotion to the Asia and Oceania Group III. In 2013, after defeating all their opponents at a tournament in the UAE, they advanced to a higher-ranked group for the first time. In 2014 at a zonal tournament held in Tehran, Turkmenistan's men's team defeated representatives from the United Arab Emirates 2:1 and retained their place in Group III of the Asia and Oceania zone. Turkmenistan’s best result came in 2015 when they reached the playoffs of the Asia and Oceania Group III tournament in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia).
