Turkmen tennis players continue to make history by qualifying for the first time for the Junior Davis Cup U16 Final Qualifiers, which will take place from the 16th to 24th of May in Shymkent, Kazakhstan, with the participation of 16 of the best teams from the Asian region. The International tennis federation announced this, inviting the Turkmenistan team to participate in the final stage of the selection for this prestigious tournament following its performance in the preliminary round of qualification, which took place in March of this year in Colombo.
As a reminder, 15 teams participated in the DCJ Asia/Oceania Pre-Qualifying tournament, held in the capital of Sri Lanka under the auspices of the International tennis federation (ITF) jointly with the Asian tennis federation (ATF).
The sixth-seeded Turkmenistan team was represented by Suleyman Hudayberdiyev, a 9th-grade student from Ashgabat specialised secondary school №86; Ali Geldiyev, a 9th-grade student from the young Olympians training school; and Kerimgeldi Guldurdyyev, a 9th-grade student from the Joint Turkmen-Russian secondary comprehensive school named after A.S. Pushkin. Our team captain at the Junior Davis Cup was 31-year-old coach and teacher at the Higher school of sports mastery of Turkmenistan, bronze medallist of the 2024 Turkmenistan Cup, Gurbanberdi Gurbanberdiyev.
In the first stage, our compatriots took first place in Group «B», defeating the Omani team 3:0 and achieving comeback victories with the same score of 2:1 over the teams of Myanmar and Singapore (2nd seed). In the quarterfinals, the Turkmen juniors defeated their fifth-seeded peers from the Philippines 2-0 and, for the first time in history, entered the top four teams of the tournament!
In addition to representatives from Turkmenistan, teams from Australia, China, Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Kazakhstan, the Republic of Korea, Pakistan, Thailand, Uzbekistan, Malaysia, Vietnam, and Sri Lanka will compete for four spots in the main tournament at the U16 Davis Cup Asian final qualifiers in Shymkent.
The Junior Davis Cup was launched by the International tennis federation (ITF) in 1985 as the Under-16 World Cup and was renamed to its current name in 2002. Each year, countries participate in regional qualifying competitions, the winners of which advance to the finals, where they compete for the title of champion.
In the final stage of the Junior Davis Cup, which will be held from the 3rd to 8th of August in the Czech city of Prostějov, 16 of the best teams from all continents will compete for the title of champion: 6 from Europe, 4 from Asia, and 2 each from North America, South America, and Africa.
The past year, 2025, was very successful for Turkmen tennis. Thus, at the Central Asian U12 Championship in Fergana, the girls' team, having defeated the previously unyielding Uzbekistan team, earned the right to compete for the first time in the Asian U12 Team Championship in Singapore.
In addition, the women's team of Turkmenistan took second place at the regional tournament Billie Jean King Cup (Group III Asia/Oceania) in Colombo. And the men's team of Turkmenistan, participating for the first time in the prestigious ITF Master's World Team Championship in Manavgat, Türkiye, reached the top eight teams in the world, making this achievement a part of the history of national tennis.
Another remarkable event was the new success of Turkmen tennis players at the Davis Cup zonal tournament in Bahrain. Having confidently won Group «C», and then the playoff match against Guam with a score of 3:0, our compatriots earned a ticket to Group IV of the Asia-Oceania zone, where they will play in 2026.
And now another bright page has been written into the history of Turkmen sports, marking the debut of our tennis team in the final qualification of the Junior Davis Cup among athletes under 16 years old.
