Johannesburg - South Africa scored a major coup as it managed to rope in South African tennis legend Wayne Ferreira as an consultant to Davis Cup captain Marcos Ondruska.
Ferreira flew in from the United States ahead of South Africa’s Euro/Africa Group 2 tie against Estonia at the Irene Country Club over the weekend.
He was revealed as consultant on Tuesday at the at the pre-draw media conference ahead of the tie starting on Friday.
When Ondruska was appointed at the end of 2015 he touted the idea of involving Ferreira in his plans to resuscitate the sport.
Ferreira, a two-time Grand Slam semi-finalist was one of the country’s top tennis players reaching a career-high world number-six ranking in 1996 while boasting 15 ATP singles titles.
“I am delighted to confirm that Wayne has agreed to act as a consultant to me and the team in Davis Cup and we look forward to him helping us with our aims and objectives to get the country back into the World Group” said Ondruska.
Ferreira, who retired from international tennis in 2005, said he was looking forward to working with ‘best friend’ Ondruska.
“Marcos has a wealth of experience under his belt not only as a player but more so as a Davis Cup player,” said Ferreira.
“We are best of friends and for a long time Marcos has been speaking to be about giving something meaningful back to the game in my home country and I wanted to help him out in his role as Davis Cup captain so agreed to take on the consultant role.”