The Pacific Oceania men's tennis team is celebrating a Davis Cup promotion that's been almost a decade in the making.
The regional team beat Syria on Saturday to clinch promotion from Asia Oceania Group Three, alongside Hong Kong and Vietnam.
They'll contest the Davis Cup World Group Two Play-offs in February for one of 12 spots in the main draw.
Cook Islands veteran Brett Baudinet was a part of the Pacific Oceania team promoted to Group Two back in 2009, before being relegated three years later.
"(It's been) a long wait, a long battle so it's great, and especially with two young boys (Vanuatu's Clement Mainguy and Heimanarii Lai San from Tahiti)," he said.
"It's their debut so what a great way for them to start, winning our Group Three and helping the team move up to Group Two."
Pacific Oceania has won all six head to head match-ups against Syria, dating back to 1996, but had to pull out all the stops in Amman, Jordan to keep their streak alive.
Clement Mainguy was beaten 6-2 6-1 by Hazem Naw in the opening singles rubber but the Vanuatu teenager was praised for his performance against an unexpected opponent.
"Syria actually flew in their top player just for the last day...because he wasn't seeded as high he actually had to play the number two singles against Clement, so he obviously had a very tough one to come into the finals," Baudinet explained.
"But it all adds up because obviously the guy he played played in the doubles too and taking it to him on the singles doesn't make it any easier for them going in the doubles."
Colin Sinclair from the Northern Marianas levelled the tie with a 7-5 6-7 6-4 victory over Kareem Al Allaf in the second singles rubber before linking up with Baudinet for the decisive doubles clash.
The experienced duo won the opening set 6-3 and were a break up in the second before succumbing in a tiebreak.
But they held their nerve in the decisive set to prevail 6-4 and clinch promotion to Group Two for the first time in a decade.
"They were actually up a tie break at the start at 2-1 serving at 40-15 and we managed to play a couple of huge points and broke them back then held on to 4-all where we're up the net and a huge net point," Baudinet said.
"They tried hitting a passing shot pass Colin and he clipped it off the corner of his racquet and it fell over the net for a drop shot winner, so that ended up putting us up 5-4 and then we broke them to take the victory so it was awesome."