South African Wayne Montgomery has been called up to represent Bermuda in their crucial Davis Cup play-off against Georgia next month.

Montgomery, 30, was ranked seventh in the world as a junior in 2013 and competed for his country at every junior Grand Slam, reaching the quarter-finals in the US Open and losing to Nick Kyrgios at the same stage of the Australian Open.

He joins Daniel Phillips, Trey Mallory and Zachary McGuire in the four-man squad unveiled by Davis Cup captain Ricky Mallory for the Group 2 play-off in Cyprus, which takes place from February 6 to 8.

Montgomery’s selection could prove controversial as he has been given the nod over Tariq Simons, who helped Bermuda reach this stage for the first time in their history in June last year.

Justifying the decision to call up Montgomery for the first time, captain Mallory felt that Simons’s decision to take six months out and travel to India was the key factor in leaving him out of the side.

“After our last campaign in June, Tariq went off to a six-month training course and hasn’t really picked up a tennis racket within those six months,” Mallory said.

“We would have loved to have him on the team, but it was just the fact that he hasn’t played for X amount of months. He appreciates and understands the decision.

“We did have trials and Wayne won while Zach was second, so it was just basically solely based on the performance in those trial matches.”

Montgomery, a risk manager at Talcott Re Holdings, was ranked in the top 20 college player in the US a decade ago while at the University of Georgia and is eligible to represent Bermuda, with International Tennis Federation rules stating a player is generally qualified to represent a country if they have lived there for 24 consecutive months and have not represented another country for the immediately preceding 36 months in an official competition.

“Wayne has lived in Bermuda for approximately five years,” Mallory said

“We wrote in for him and the ITF has allowed him to represent Bermuda. It was a long process but we are glad he is available.”

Montgomery’s surprise call-up undoubtedly gives Bermuda, ranked 81 in the world, a chance to upstage Georgia and break into the world’s top 60, which Bermuda Lawn Tennis Association president Michael Wolfe feels would rank as one of Bermuda sport’s biggest achievements.

“Our tennis population is considered to be small even among other Caribbean nations that we compete against regularly,” Wolfe said.

“For us to even make it to this level is a massive achievement. We have beaten some of the powerhouses in our region such as Jamaica and Costa Rica, who was the host of the event last year and that was quite an upset.

“For us to take on those nations and defeat them when it mattered was a major accomplishment. When you look back at the history of Bermuda tennis, we started in Group 4, the bottom group in this region.

“We’ve worked our way up to the point where now we’re going to take on some of the top players in the world. Georgia has a player ranked just outside the top 100 in the world and he has been ranked as high as the top 20.

“For our players to be taking on this task is monumental. We can’t express how proud we are of the guys who not only won last year, but the guys who helped to get us to that stage last year.

“This has been a journey, and it’s something that we’re definitely proud of in the tennis community. It also allows us to demonstrate to younger tennis players coming along that there is opportunity here if you put in the work, the time on the court.

“There are plenty of options out there for you in the world of tennis, so we’re definitely pleased and proud of this moment.”