Food poisoning throws Jamaican Davis Cup players off game
Jamaica’s Davis Cup Captain Mel Spence has confirmed that several of the country’s players suffered from food poisoning before Friday’s start of their Group Two tie against hosts Lebanon in Jounieh.
Spence told the Jamaica Observer that the country’s top players Blaise Bicknell and Rowland “Randy” Phillips were among those affected. He said that this resulted in both of them suffering straight sets defeats in their opening singles matches on Friday to the Lebanese.
In fact, Spence stated that Bicknell was leading his opponent by two points in the first set before he started experiencing stomach discomfort.
“Blaise had some stomach issues for most of the night and he also had diarrhoea, and so by the time he was leading 4-2 in the first set, he just said that he was light-headed and he was seeing stars and we realised that he didn’t have any energy to give,” he said.
“He also started throwing up at the end of the match and so it was very tough for me. Randy also had some stomach problems as well before the match, but he did his best for us,” Spence pointed.
The Jamaicans trail the best of five series 2-0 after Phillips was beaten 5-7, 3-6 by Benjamin in his opening match, while Bicknell went down 6-7, 6-1 to Habib in his encounter.
Bicknell and Phillips will today team up against Benjamin and Habib in the doubles match today and a defeat for the Jamaicans will result in their losing the best-of-five encounter. The match is scheduled to start at 4:00 am Jamaica time.
However, Spence stated that both players have now recovered and he is confident that they will win today’s doubles encounter against the Lebanese.
“I am still confident that we can win this tie, but we have to win this doubles or else we will lose the tie. I have faith in these guys that we can bounce back in this tie,” said Spence.
“We are going to give Blaise some IV [intravenous] fluids before this match and we will see how things pan out in this doubles match,” he said.
The other members of Jamaica’s team are John Chin, Daniel Azar, and David Goldsmith.
— Robert Bailey
