The women's team earned a comfortable victory in last year's final thanks to Jane Ndenga's 7-5, 7-5 win and Phoebe Masika's 6-3, 6-0 success over Tanzania's Selemani Rehema and Lucy Shirima respectively.

Masika is hoping to regain the title this week and has been preparing for the tournament by competing in the Nairobi Open Wheelchair Tennis event, also at the Nairobi Club, where she reached the final.

She told Nation Sport that her good performance at the Nairobi Open has given her confidence for the qualifiers where she says she wants to "help my country qualify for the World Cup".

The Kenyan men's team will be out to take revenge on Tanzania, who defeated them 2-1 in last year's final.

Egypt and Cameroon, who competed in last year's third-place play-off match, will be hoping to go at least one step further this time around.

The competition starts tomorrow and ends on Sunday (February 18).

This is the second of four regional qualifying competitions for the 2018 BNP World Team Cup with the United States and Argentina having already secured their spots by lifting the men's and women's titles, respectively, at the Americas event.

The World Cup is due to take place in Apeldoorn in The Netherlands from May 28 to June 3 and will be hosted by the Royal Dutch Lawn Tennis Association.