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De Voest was embarassed in Slovenia

Although Rola instead of much more experienced Zemlja was opening for Slovenia in Davis Cup, De Voest did not get a single break in three sets. He lost the unimportant match on Sunday, too. Diez is Canadian, but looks more like a Spaniard

Although De Voest has just one challenger appearance on clay this season, one less than the last year, he decided on a challenger in Poland. The reason is simple - it was by the way.  Slovenia was the host to South Africa during the Davis Cup weekend. Naturally, Slovenia picked clay and were great favorites, but South Africa had a glimmer of hope. Instead of Zemlja, relatively inexperienced Blaz Rola played on Friday and De Voest siad before the match:

- I look forward to this appearance, like always when I'm playing for the national team, and I hope my country will have the lead after the first match.

No lead, not even a single set. Rola won in three sets and later was himself amazed at the ease of his win:

- I didn't expect such an easy victory. From the first point I was in a good mood, but the win was so easy that I was surprised. I did not let my opponent take away a single serve in three sets, which is a rarity for clay matches.

Slovenia had ensured the win after the doubles, and De Voest did not give a better performance on Sunday. Although the result did not matter, he was again defeated convincingly, by Semrajac, a player who is struggling to get back in the Top 400.

Diez's story is interesting from the beginning because he is not a typical player for the country where he hails from. Most Canadians play their best, and play most often, on hard courts. Diez doesn't. This 22-year-old loves clay so much that he spent several months in Algeria. he won three futures in a row, and he was also successful in stronger Spanish futures, where at one point he had 13 victories in a row. His coach is Spanish and often uses that language during the matches, so the Canadian roots are barely visible here.

In local media, the thing most often mentioned with his name is "inconsistency". That changed late in last year when he managed to get three quarterfinals on this level in a row, on different courts. Currently he is fighting to enter the Top 200 for the first time in his career, and last week he reached the quarterfinals of a challenger in Morocco. That's a good result, since a week before that he had food poisoning in Romania. Here he certainly is the favorite.

It's clearly seen from the preview why De Voest, by some miracle, decided to play on the clay court challenger. During the weekend he was defending the honor of his national team on Davis Cup in Slovenia. Not only did he lose both matches, but he was out of breaks on day one. It didn't help that Rola stepped in for Zemlja. Rola himself was surprised with such a win. De Voest's interest in clay courts is visible out of his number of performances. Since last year he had only three clay court tournaments, and each time he lost in that handicap. Three months ago he took away five games from Sergeyev. Diez is a Canadian who is trained by a Spaniard and who prefers clay. He's very good in the futures where he collected a couple of titles, and he had a solid performance on the challengers. Last week he came up to the quarter-finals. He will be tossing and kicking for a victory here, which we don't expect from the South African. The 1100 euros (the first round fund) will come in handy for trip expenses.