Sporting Digest: Tennis

BRITAIN were yesterday confirmed as joint top seeds with Luxembourg, the other demoted side from Group One, when the draw is made for next year's Davis Cup Euro-Africa Zone Group Two in London on Tuesday. Ghana and Latvia are the third and fourth seeds. None of the seeded nations can face each other, leaving Britain to play one of the 12 remaining teams in the section - Belarus, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, Ireland, Ivory Coast, Lithuania, Monaco, Nigeria, Poland, Slovak Republic and Ukraine. Germany and the United States, both knocked out in the semi-finals of the Davis Cup this year, are top seeds in the World Group for next year's competition.

NOTTINGHAM is to host a pounds 200,000 pre-Wimbledon men's grasscourt tournament to replace the event previously held in Manchester. The event, which has been sanctioned by the men's ATP Tour, will be known as the Nottingham Open and will take place in the week immediately preceding Wimbledon, 19-23 June.

BORIS BECKER yesterday unleashed a staggering 21 aces in 12 service games, the most aces he has hit in two sets, beating the unseeded American Jonathan Stark 7-6, 6-3 to reach the semi-finals of the Australian Indoor Championships in Sydney.