Turkmenistan’s junior tennis team finished fourth out of 15 teams at the preliminary qualifying tournament for the U16 Davis Cup in the Asia-Oceania zone, which concluded in Colombo (Sri Lanka). This was reported by the publication ‘Turkmenistan: Golden age’.

The team, seeded sixth, was represented by 9th grade students: Suleyman Hudayberdiyev (Specialised Secondary School No. 86, Ashgabat), Ali Geldiyev (School for the Training of Young Olympians) and Kerimgeldi Guldurdyev (A.S. Pushkin Joint Turkmen-Russian School).

In the group stage, the Turkmenistan team finished top of Group ‘B’, beating the Oman team 3–0 and defeating the teams from Myanmar and Singapore 2–1 in hard-fought matches. In the quarter-finals, the Turkmen tennis players secured a confident 2-0 victory over the Philippines.

In the semi-finals, the Turkmenistan team lost 0–2 to the third-seeded Vietnamese side, showing resilience and fighting spirit in two lengthy singles matches. In the third-place play-off, the Turkmen juniors lost to Sri Lanka, conceding only in the doubles match – 1–2.

The team thus finished the tournament in fourth place, achieving their best result in all their years of participation in the regional Davis Cup qualifiers. Ali Geldiyev made a significant contribution to this success, securing five victories in six singles matches at tournaments in Qatar and Thailand. Kerimgeldi Guldurdyev and Suleyman Hudayberdiyev, who have experience of competing in international tournaments, also played an active part in the team’s victories.

The juniors’ preparation for the tournament was overseen by their personal coaches and the captain of the Turkmenistan national team, Gurbanberdi Gurbanberdiyev. Ali Geldiyev honed his skills under Gurbanberdi Gurbanberdiyev and Meylis Orazmuhammedov, Suleyman Hudayberdiyev trained under the guidance of Yuri Rogussky, and Kerimgeldi Guldurdyev under Hajymyrat Charyev.

In the final of the preliminary tournament, the teams from Malaysia and Vietnam competed for a place in the final qualifying round, where the Malaysian tennis players secured a 2-0 victory.

The Davis Cup Junior was established by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) in 1985 as the World Cup for boys under 16 and has been held under its current name since 2002. The winners of the regional qualifiers advance to the final stage, where they compete for the title of champion.