{"id":21925,"date":"2013-08-15T13:21:56","date_gmt":"2013-08-15T11:21:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/obrien-joins-davis-cup-team-for-slovenia-tie\/"},"modified":"2013-08-15T13:21:56","modified_gmt":"2013-08-15T11:21:56","slug":"obrien-joins-davis-cup-team-for-slovenia-tie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/obrien-joins-davis-cup-team-for-slovenia-tie\/","title":{"rendered":"O\u2019Brien joins Davis Cup team for Slovenia tie"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t    <a href=\"http:\/\/mysport24.co.za\/?attachment_id=13543\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-13543\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-13543\" alt=\"Dean O'Brien. Photo: Jacaranda FM\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/plugins\/rss-poster\/cache\/0d040_DEAN-O-BRIEN_post_detail_web.jpg\" width=\"320\" height=\"240\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dean O\u2019Brien. Photo: Jacaranda FM<\/p>\n<p>With neither Kevin Anderson nor the recuperating Izak van der Merwe available to play, South Africa will have one new player in their squad for the upcoming first-round playoff tie again Slovenia in Ljubljana from September 13 to 15.<\/p>\n<p>Dean O\u2019Brien, 23, will join stalwarts Rik de Voest and Raven Klaasen, along with Ruan Roelofse and Nikala Scholtz in the five-man squad announced by Tennis South Africa (TSA).<\/p>\n<p>This is a crucial tie as the losers will have to face Russia in the final relegation playoff to see who remains in Euro\/Africa Zone Group 1 and who will drop to Group 2 next year. Victory in Slovenia will see South Africa automatically stay in Group 1.<\/p>\n<p>The tie will be played outdoors on red cay at the TS Bezigrad.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/mysport24.co.za\/south-african-anderson-breaks-into-atp-top-20\/\" target=\"_blank\">Anderson, who is currently ranked 19 in the world, his highest ever world ranking<\/a>, is again unavailable for the tie while Van der Merwe remains injured and has a protected ranking.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am very honoured and excited to be playing in Slovenia,\u201d said O\u2019Brien, who currently holds an ATP singles ranking of 605.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo be part of the South African Davis Cup team and to represent my country is an amazing achievement. It has been a dream and a goal of mine since I was a junior.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>For more breaking Tennis South Africa news,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/mysport24.co.za\/tag\/tennis-south-africa\/\" target=\"_blank\">click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>For more breaking sporting news and views, visit MySport24 on\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MySport24\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/mysport24?ref=hl\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"zemanta-pixie-a\" title=\"Enhanced by Zemanta\" href=\"http:\/\/www.zemanta.com\/?px\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"zemanta-pixie-img\" alt=\"Enhanced by Zemanta\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/plugins\/rss-poster\/cache\/e0111_zemified_h.png\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dean O\u2019Brien. Photo: Jacaranda FM With neither Kevin Anderson nor the recuperating Izak van der Merwe available to play, South Africa will have one new player in their squad for the upcoming first-round playoff tie again Slovenia in Ljubljana from September 13 to 15. Dean O\u2019Brien, 23, will join stalwarts Rik de Voest and Raven [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[3258,830,885],"class_list":{"0":"post-21925","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-mysport","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-sport","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21925"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21925\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}