Men’s Look Forward: Davis Cup

Written by: Staff on 9th February 2012

Men's Look Forward: Davis Cup

Rafael Nadal of Spain returns the ball during his men's semi final match against Roger Federer of Switzerland at the Australian Open Grand Slam tennis tournament in Melbourne, Australia, 26 January 2012. Nadal won in four sets. EPA/HOW HWEE YOUNG |

©”DAILY TENNIS NEWS WIRE”

How much can you subtract from the Spanish Davis Cup team and still have it be competitive?

We may be about to find out. The nation of Rafael Nadal and David Ferrer has a team headed by — Nicolas Almagro. Also available: Marcel Granollers, Juan Carlos Ferrero, and Marc Lopez. No Nadal, Ferrer, Verdasco, or Feliciano Lopez.

Lucky for them that they’re up against Kazakhstan, with a team consisting of Mikhail Kukushkin, slumping Andrey Golubev, Yuriy Schukin, and Evgeny Korolev. Not much there to threaten the Spanish, especially since Spain is hosting the tie on clay.

Although Granollers is the #2 singles player on the team, the Spanish have elected to play Almagro and Ferrero in singles, letting Granollers play doubles with Lopez. Which makes some sense, since Granollers is also their best doubles player. Kukushkin and Golubev play singles for the Kazakhs.

The Americans, now, they have something to worry about. Lots of things, in fact. Andy Roddick isn’t available, and neither is Bob Bryan, so the team consists of Mardy Fish, John Isner, Ryan Harrison, and Mike Bryan. And they’re playing in Switzerland, which is at full strength: Roger Federer, Stanislas Wawrinka, and clay. The Swiss also have Marco Chiudinelli and Michael Lammer, but it’s the top two and the surface that will actually be on the court. It doesn’t look good for the Americans. On the other hand, it’s a nice way to break in Harrison, who will play the doubles with Mike Bryan.

Austria, which will be hosting Russia, will as usual be leaning heavily on Jurgen Melzer, plus their doubles team of Marach/Peya. Their #2 in singles is Andreas Haider-Maurer. The Russians are weaker in doubles, but their singles lineup features Alex Bogomolov Jr., now playing for them since the Americans didn’t want him; Mikhail Youzhny, Nikolay Davydenko, and Igor Kunitsyn. Melzer will be under heavy pressure; he almost has to win both his singles matches.

There is an interesting twist there: The Russians have decided to play Kunitsyn at #2 singles on Friday rather than Youzhny or Davydenko. They refused to say why. Youzhny did complain of a sore shoulder a few days ago. Our guess would be that the Russians expect to lose that match to Melzer anyway, and don’t want to risk their stronger players (although Kunitsyn, interestingly, has won both his career matches with Melzer). But that’s only a guess.

The Russians have openly admitted that they have not yet decided on their doubles pairing.

Canada, which is finally playing at the top level now that it has Milos Raonic, will be hosting France on an indoor hardcourt in Vancouver. But other than Raonic and doubles specialist Daniel Nestor, they don’t have much — Vasek Pospisil, their #2 singles player, is promising but still too young, and Frank Dancevic isn’t going anywhere. And France has Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, plus the strong doubles team of Benneteau/Llodra, although their #2 singles player, Gael Monfils, is not in the best shape. Indeed, the French left him off the singles roster; Julien Benneteau was called to play #2 singles. That gives the Canadians a little more hope — but that still leaves them probably having to win every match not involving Tsonga.

There isn’t even much point in looking up the Czech team that will be hosting Italy on indoor hardcourt; it never changes. It will be Tomas Berdych and Radek Stepanek, with Lukas Rosol to play out any dead matches and Frantisek Cermak to wish he could break up the doubles team. Against an Italian team of Andreas Seppi, Potito Starace, Simone Bolelli, and Daniele Bracciali, they look pretty good. The Italians naturally picked Seppi for #1 singles, but in a surprise move, they chose Bolelli rather than Starace for #2. Starace reportedly has been sick and has not been training.

Serbia will have to host Sweden without Novak Djokovic. But they have Janko Tipsarevic and Viktor Troicki, plus Nenad Zimonjic for doubles and Ilija Bozoljac to play either the fourth or fifth match after the Serbs win the first three. Because they really ought to. The Swedes, lacking Robin Soderling, have no one ranked in the Top 300.

Japan, which will host Croatia on an indoor hardcourt, has Kei Nishikori. Croatia has Ivan Dodig and Ivo Karlovic. Note the absence of both Marin Cilic and Ivan Ljubicic. The supporting casts: Go Soeda, Tatsuma Ito, and Yuichi Sugita versos Antonio Veic and Lovro Zovko. Hard to call that one.

Germany, which will host Argentina on clay (huh?), just lost Philipp Kohlschreiber. Argentina never had Juan Martin del Potro. Their team consists of Juan Ignacio Chela, Juan Monaco, David Nalbandian, and Eduardo Schwank. The Germans now have to rely mostly on Florian Mayer in singles and Philipp Petzschner in doubles; Petzschner also got the call to play #2 singles after Kohlschreiber bailed. That would look pretty interesting on, say, carpet; on clay, the Argentines look like the favorites. The one interesting footnote is that that they chose to play Nalbandian and Monaco, rather than Chela and Monaco, in singles. Chela is supposed to play with Schwank in the doubles against Petzschner and Tommy Haas.

The Rankings

Figuring out rankings during Davis Cup is extremely difficult, because the ATP does not break down who earned what points. We aren’t going to try. Fortunately, in this round, the points are pretty small. It doesn’t appear there will be any Top Ten movement.

©”DAILY TENNIS NEWS WIRE”