Vietnamese No 1 Do Minh Quan (photo), former Top Players Championship winner Ngo Quang Huy, of HCM City, Binh Duong’s Bui Tri Nguyen, Soc Trang’s Tran Thanh Hoang and Ngo Quoc Khanh of the Army team will all convene at the National Sports Training Centre in HCM City in early March to prepare for the event, announced the head of the tennis section, Doan Quoc Cuong.

Vietnam will play alongside Bahrain, Bangladesh, Brunei, Iraq, Jordan, Mongolia, Myanmar, Qatar, Turkmenistan, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen.

The Vietnamese team aims to gain international experience from their participation ahead of major tournaments this year, according to Cuong.

National champion Quan, who took the Singapore Open title last year, is expected to lead the team to the competition, with high hopes for a promotion to Group 3.

However, Quan said that March was the month that he would have to study for exams at the Sport University, so he was debating between learning and competing.

According to experts, Vietnam will not have a hard time beating their rivals in Group 4 to realise their goal. However, with their current force, Group 3 will be a big challenge for the team. If Vietnam tennis wants to see a real change, it will wait to see the growth of young talented players like Nguyen Hoang Thien, who brought home the silver medal in the men’s singles at the Asian U-14 Tennis Championship, organised in Malaysia earlier this year.

Vietnam was promoted to Group 3 after winning the championships in the Group 4 competition in Sri Lanka in 2003.

In 2004, Vietnam hosted the Davis Cup for the first time, and missed the chance to climb to Group 2 after placing third behind Kazakhstan and Pacific Oceania.

VietNamNet/VNS