Malaysia made the most of home advantage to win the men’s draw at the BNP Paribas World Team Cup Asia and Oceania Qualification in Kuala Lumpur, while Korea, Republic beat the host nation to victory in the women’s event and two-time World Team Cup champions Australia triumphed in the first of two regional qualifications in the quad division.

All three teams will now contest the 2020 BNP Paribas World Team Cup Finals in Vilamoura, Portugal on 4-10 May.

Malaysia will contest the men’s event at the World Team Cup Finals for the 13th time and for the first time since 2016 after success for the hosts in Kuala Lumpur largely hinged on a tense 2-1 round-robin pool victory over Sri Lanka. The tie began with a final set tiebreak and concluded with a match tiebreak in the deciding doubles rubber.

Mohamad Yusshazwan made a spectacular recovery in the first singles rubber of the tie to defeat Gamini Dissanayake 1-6 7-6(5) 7-6(4). Abu Samah Borhan later bounced back from dropping the second singles rubber to partner Yusshazwan to a 6-4 3-6 (10-5) victory over the Sri Lanka partnership of Suresh Dharmasena and Suresh Ranaweera.

While Malaysia edged out Sri Lanka to top their pool, Australia enjoyed 3-0 wins over Indonesia and Vietnam to finish top of their other pool, with Martyn Dunn and former world No. 10 Ben Weekes ensuring a straightforward passage to the final without dropping a set between them.

However, Malaysia proved to be unbeatable as Yusshazwan dropped just one game to Dunn and Borhan wrapped up a 2-0 victory over Australia in the final after defeating Weekes 6-3 6-4.

It was a triumph that impressed Wheelchair Tennis Malaysia President Iqbal Sulaiman, who said:

“Congratulations to my home nation team. They nearly lost in the round-robin, but our second singles player fought hard and because of that we got to the final. We had a tough fight also against the Australians. But I’m looking forward to our team going forward to Portugal and giving a strong fight to the other nations.”

Malaysia’s women’s team were unable to match the success of their male counterparts in a best-of-three series with Korea, Republic. As the only two women’s teams in Kuala Lumpur bidding to book a place in Portugal, the Malaysian and Korean teams met each other on successive days, with both ties settled in deciding doubles rubbers and ending 2-1 in favour of the Korean team of Ju-Youn Park and In Kyung Han.

Former world No. 7 Park readily demonstrated her vast experience, dropping just two games across her two singles rubbers. Malaysia’s Faizatul Ahya won both her singles contests against current Korean No. 1 Han by a margin of 6-2 6-2, but the partnership of Park and Han dominated both doubles rubbers and wrapped up the Korean victory with a 6-2 6-0 doubles win.

History was made in Kuala Lumpur as Australia eased to victory in the first ever BNP Paribas World Team Cup regional qualification for the quad division.

Men’s and women’s regional qualifications have been held since 2012. However, after missing the 2019 World Team Cup, Australia’s Paralympic gold medallists and 2016 and 2018 World Team Cup champions Dylan Alcott and Heath Davidson needed to earn qualification for their country this year, doing so with few problems against teams from Chinese Taipei and Korea, Republic.

Chinese Taipei finished second in the round-robin phase of the competition after earning victory in a match tiebreak in their deciding doubles rubber against Koreans Min Hyeong Cha and Kyu-Seung Kim.

However, having secured a place in the final and a second contest against Australia in successive days, Chu-Yin Huang and Tzu-Hsuan Huang again found the going difficult against world No. 7 Davidson and world No. 1 Alcott, with the Australians completing a 2-0 win after winning their respective singles rubbers 6-1 6-1 and 6-0 6-0.

“We’re really stoked that we are qualified for Portugal. We’re just really keen to get over there now and see if we can get our third World Team Cup title,” said Davidson.

With three of the four scheduled BNP Paribas World Team Cup regional qualifications now completed, the European Qualification is due to take place in Sardinia on 25-29 March.