Rwanda’s Davis Cup team failed to live up to its promise of either earning promotion or staging a good performance in this year’s BNP Paribas-sponsored Europe/Africa III tennis tournament held in Egypt.After losing all their Group C rubbers against Namibia and Madagascar, top players Jean Claude Gasigwa and Dieudonne Habiyambere performed poorly in the play-offs as they lost 0-3 against Cameroon on Sunday to finish 11th.Only neighbours Kenya and Zambia finished below Rwanda.Morocco and Egypt were promoted to Europe/Africa Zone Group II for 2014 after they won their play-offs against Madagascar and Zimbabwe respectively.The other promotion play-off saw Zimbabwe take on hosts Egypt, and Sabry Sherif won the opening rubber 6-2, 6-2 to give the Egyptians the advantage. In the other positional play-offs, Algeria defeated Namibia 2-1 and Ghana defeated Nigeria 2-1 leaving the two winning nations tied in 5th and the two losing nations tied in 7th position. Cameroon defeated Rwanda 3-0 and Botswana defeated Kenya 2-1 so Cameroon and Botswana ended the event tied in 9th place, with Rwanda and Kenya tied in 11th.After this year’s tournament, Rwanda is placed 126th on the ITF Davis Cup Nations Rankings, one place ahead of Albania.Czech Republic leads the standings while South Africa is the best ranked African nation in 34th position.
