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Bolivia at the 2006 Davis Cup

Introduction

The 2006 Davis Cup was the most important tournament in the world of men�s tennis. It was the 95th edition of this prestigious tournament. 16 teams competed in the World Group and a total of 125 nations in other groups. 10th to 12th February saw the first round matches while the final took place from 1st to 3rd December at Moscow, Russia. Bolivia at the 2006 Davis Cup competed in the tournament in the Americas zone. The Bolivian team was placed in the group II of this zone. The team of Bolivia that competed in this grand event was as follows:

Jose � Roberto Velasco
Mauricio Estivariz
Carlos Alvarez
Jorge Villanueva

Countries at the 2006 Davis Cup

Including Bolivia, eight nations were classified in this group for the tournament. The remaining seven nations were Columbia, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Jamaica, Netherlands, Paraguay and Uruguay. The players in all the teams were confident that their team would be progressing to the upper groups for the 2007 Davis Cup. Each and every contestant was working hard to make this dream come true.

Participation and Performance of Bolivia in the 2006 Davis Cup

Bolivia at the 2006 Davis Cup initially played in the play off matches. The play off matches was held from the 7th to the 9th of April. In the play offs, Bolivia played against Uruguay. The players from Bolivia set up a poor show and lost all the matches. Uruguay won all the five matches. However, both the teams advanced to the first round of the tournament. In the first round, Bolivia played against Paraguay. The first round matches were held from 10th to 12th of February. In the first match, Mauricio Estivariz fought against Emilio Baez Britez. The Paraguayan player, Britez won the match having defeated Estivariz in straight sets 6-3, 6-3, 6-1. The second match yielded the same result. Velasco from Bolivia had to face a defeat from Delgado since Delgado won the match 6-0, 6-2, 6-4. The dominance of the Paraguayan players continued and even in the next two matches, Bolivia was thrashed by the opponents.

However in the last match, Jose � Roberto Velasco won against Juan � Carlos Ramirez 6-2, 4-6, 6-1. Thus, Bolivia had won just one match at the end of the first round while its opponent Paraguay won four of the total five. Thus, the hopes of all the Bolivian players were crashed in the first round itself since their team was out of the tournament at such an early stage.
On the whole, performance of Bolivia at the 2006 Davis Cup was pitiable. As a result of the poor show, Bolivia was relegated to group III of the Americas zone in 2007.