Ireland will face South Africa in a Davis Cup Europe/Africa Zone Group II relegation play-off in July after being whitewashed by Belarus in Dublin this weekend.
Conor Niland was captaining the side for the first time but had to make do without Ireland’s top two players as Louk Sorensen and Irish number one James McGee skipped the event.
Sorensen has been unavailable for Davis Cup action for a number of years while McGee is concentrating on the American hard-court season.
World number 347 Sam Barry and world number 933 Daniel Glancy faced onerous tasks in their singles encounters against Egor Gerasimov and Dzmitry Zhyrmont over the three days.
Action at the indoor arena at Castleknock Lawn Tennis Club got under way on Friday with world number 275 Zhyrmont accounting for Limerick man Barry 6-4 6-7 (7/3) 7-6 (7/4) 6-2.
World number 246 Gerasimov inflicted a 6-2 6-3 6-3 defeat on Glancy in the other match on the opening evening.
The doubles duo of James Cluskey and David O’Hare took on Sergey Betov and Alexander Bury on Saturday. The Belarusians are ranked just inside the top 100 in the world in the doubles ranking and were coming into the match in a rich vein of form having reached the semi-finals in Zagreb at the start of February.
Betov and Bury won a competitive encounter on a 7-6 (9/7) 5-7 6-3 6-4 scoreline.
Belarus prevailed in both Sunday’s dead rubbers as Gerasimov overcame early resistance from Barry to win 7-6 (8/6) 6-2, while Zhyrmont recorded a comprehensive 6-2 6-0 win against Glancy.
