![\"Rafter-700x450\"](\"http:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/files\/2014\/09\/Rafter-700x450.jpg\")
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Australia\u2019s Davis Cup captain Pat Rafter hopes his team will receive a slice of overdue luck when the draw for the first round of the 2015 World Group is announced on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Australia retained their spot in the elite 16-nation World Group after beating Uzbekistan 5-0 in the play-off in Perth.<\/p>\n
Rafter is confident his team can cause some damage in the first round next year \u2013 as long as they receive a good draw.<\/p>\n
Australia copped a 5-0 pasting at the hands of France on enemy territory earlier this year, and Rafter is hoping for a friendlier draw this time around.<\/p>\n
A trip to Switzerland to face the might of former world No.1 Roger Federer and 2014 Australian Open champion Stanislas Wawrinka would be a nightmare scenario.<\/p>\n
Great Britain away would also be tough, especially if two-time grand slam winner Andy Murray is firing.<\/p>\n
But Australia will fancy their chances if they are drawn against either Italy (home), Germany (home) or Kazakhstan (venue to be decided by coin toss).<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a couple of ties we don\u2019t want,\u201d Rafter said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I think there\u2019s some (ties) that won\u2019t just be winnable, but we\u2019ll be favourites.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got some good opportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n
Rising star Nick Kyrgios overcame an inconvenient nose bleed to ensure Australia sealed the 5-0 whitewash against Uzbekistan.<\/p>\n
With Australia already 4-0 up in the tie, the pressure was off Kyrgios heading into Sunday\u2019s match against world No.736 Sanjar Fayziev.<\/p>\n
Despite the perfect sunshine, Kyrgios was in no mood to hang about, with the 19-year-old taking just 39 minutes to dispatch Fayziev 6-1 6-1.<\/p>\n
However, it wasn\u2019t all smooth sailing for Kyrgios, who lost a game in the second set after being troubled by a blood nose.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve always had a tendency to get blood noses,\u201d Kyrgios said.<\/p>\n
\u201cUsually if it doesn\u2019t stop I\u2019d get a cotton ball or something to put up my nose.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can get forfeited if it doesn\u2019t stop, so it\u2019s actually a bit of a serious issue if I\u2019m getting blood noses all of the time.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt came at a pretty weird time, but what are you going to do?<\/p>\n
\u201cI couldn\u2019t really put my head down because it would leak.\u201d<\/p>\n
Earlier in the day, big-serving Victorian Sam Groth made a perfect start to his Davis Cup career with a 6-3 6-2 win over world No.527 Temur Ismailov.<\/p>\n
Groth, who became the 105th player to represent Australia at the Davis Cup, needed just 63 minutes to power past Ismailov.<\/p>\n
Uzbekistan, who are yet to reach the World Group, will have to battle it out in the Asia\/Oceania Zone for another year after struggling badly on the grass surface at Cottesloe Tennis Club.<\/p>\n
Lleyton Hewitt and Kyrgios stormed to straight-sets singles wins on the opening day over Farrukh Dustov and Denis Istomin respectively.<\/p>\n
Hewitt and Chris Guccione then combined for a 6-3 7-6 (7-5) 6-2 doubles victory over Istomin and Dustov on Saturday to give Australia an unassailable 3-0 lead.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Australia\u2019s Davis Cup captain Pat Rafter hopes his team will receive a slice of overdue luck when the draw for the first round of the 2015 World Group is announced on Thursday. Australia retained their spot in the elite 16-nation World Group after beating Uzbekistan 5-0 in the play-off in Perth. Rafter is confident his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5894,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5894"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9337\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tennis.com.au\/wa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}