Pro Tennis Tour News – Men – Davis Cup Preview

Written by: on 26th January 2014
Tennis Australian Open 2014
Pro Tennis Tour News - Men - Davis Cup Preview

epa04042730 Stanislas Wawrinka of Switzerland speaking at a press conference after winning the men's singles match at the Australian Open tennis tournament in Melbourne, Australia, 26 January 2014. EPA/JOE CASTRO AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND OUT  |

* Injured Nadal no match for Wawrinka

* Mladenovic/Nestor do it again

****** TODAY’S MEN’S NEWS

 

Australian Open

 

Singles – Final: (8) Stanislas Wawrinka def. (1) Rafael Nadal 6-3 6-2 3-6 6-3

Rafael Nadal came in with a hand blister. He came out with a back injury — and no title.

Nadal suffered the injury in the second set, and some watchers thought he would retire. But he was already in trouble by then. Stanislas Wawrinka had never won a set against Nadal, but he came out firing here. He admitted, “It’s really not the way you want to win a tennis match, but in a Grand Slam final I’ll take it!”

Especially in his first Grand Slam final. He never expected even to reach a Slam final. Now he has a Slam title — and in fine fashion, having beaten both the #1 and #2 seeds along the way. That hadn’t happened since Sergi Bruguera did it at Roland Garros 1993, and it has happened only eight times in the Open Era. The last time it happened in Australia was in 1983 — it almost never happens on hardcourts; most of the instances are on grass and clay. Which makes it even more impressive.

He’ll certainly take an impressive rankings leap. #8 coming in, he rockets to #3. A weak #3, to be sure, some 5000 points behind #2, but the flip side is, he has very little to defend in the next few months — a final at Buenos Aires (which hardly even counts), a Round of Sixteen at Indian Wells, a semifinal at Casablanca (which doesn’t count), a quarterfinal at Monte Carlo. It’s not until Madrid that he really has to worry about defending. He could gain a lot of ground in that time.

And who would have thought that tiny Switzerland would be the only nation which can currently boast two active players who have won Slams?

Rafael Nadal will probably harbor even more bitter thoughts about hardcourts after this — after all, he lost the chance to tie Pete Sampras for second on the all-time Slam list. But he pads his lead over Novak Djokovic in the contest for #1; he now leads by more than 3500 points. It will be a long time before he loses the top spot!

Mixed Doubles – Final: Kristina Mladenovic/Daniel Nestor def. (6) Sania Mirza/Horia Tecau 6-3 6-2

Forget the seedings. Kristina Mladenovic and Daniel Nestor are the #1 mixed doubles team in the world, and the Mixed rankings backed that up. They have reached at least the semifinal of four straight Slams, and came here as the top team in the Mixed rankings. And, now, they have won two of the last three (Wimbledon and Australian Open). We hope it won’t surprise you too much to learn that they now top the Mixed rankings; the Women’s Top Ten looks like this:

1….Mladenovic…….3150

2….Mirza…………2183

3….Hradecka………2167

4….Raymond……….2000

5….Huber…………1783

6….Vesnina……….1700

7….Srebotnik……..1633

8….Peschke……….1583

9….Gajdosova……..1433

10….Hlavackova…….1383

For the men, the standings are

1….Nestor………..3467

2….Soares………..2567

3….Cermak………..2167

4….Paes………….1883

5….Matkowski……..1500

6….Tecau…………1433

7….Zimonjic………1383

8….Bhupathi………1367

9….GonzalezS……..1317

9….Mirnyi………..1317

Nestor has now won the Australian Mixed three times (the other two were in 2007 with Likhovtseva and in 2011 with Srebotnik), and it has him talking about winning the Grand Slam this year. At the rate he’s going, it looks possible.

Kristina Mladenovic, at twenty, is less than half Nestor’s age. It will be interesting to see how many Slams she can win if she lasts as long as he does….

****** TODAY’S FEATURE ******

 

Drawing It In

 

Everybody knows that the top players don’t much like playing Davis Cup. Based on preliminary lists, it appears that five of the top eight — Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, Juan Martin del Potro, David Ferrer, and Roger Federer — are taking this round off.

Does it matter? Consider this: The Davis Cup rankings and seedings are based on the teams’ results. Which generally means that the highest-ranked teams are the ones which have succeeded in the past in getting their players to turn out. Which doesn’t say anything about the teams they field this year. Case in point: Serbia. They don’t have Novak Djokovic, because he’s sitting it out; they don’t have Janko Tipsarevic, because he’s hurting; and they don’t have Viktor Troicki, because he’s suspended. So they are ranked high in Davis Cup — but the team they’re actually fielding is a bunch of patsies. It doesn’t matter if you consider seeding a reward for past results — but if the goal is to help the best teams win, then it does matter.

We thought we’d look at how this affects the draw. For this purpose, we tried to rank the actual announced teams. Not the teams each nation could have, but the team each nation is expected to field based on preliminary lists. Starting with the lists, we guessed who would play singles and doubles. That gives us these 16 lineups:

Argentina: Berlocq, Monaco, Schwank/Zeballos

Australia: Hewitt, Kyrgios, Guccione/Hewitt

Belgium: Goffin, Bemelmans, Bemelmans/Rochus

Canada: Raonic, Pospisil, Nestor/Pospisil

Czech Republic: Berdych, Stepanek, Berdych/Stepanek

France: Gasquet, Tsonga, Benneteau/Tsonga

Germany: Haas, Kohlschreiber, Kohlschreiber/Mayer

Great Britain: Murray, Edmund, Fleming/Murray

Italy: Fognini, Seppi, Bolelli/Fognini

Japan: Nishikori, Soeda, Nishikori/Soeda

Kazakhstan: Kukushkin, Golubev, Korolev/Kukushkin

Netherlands: Haase, Sijsling, Rojer/Sijsling

Serbia: Lajovic, Krajinovic, Bozoljac/Zimonjic

Spain: Lopez, Verdasco, Marrero/Verdasco

Switzerland: Wawrinka, Chiudinelli, Chiudinelli/Wawrinka

United States: Isner, Querrey, Bryan/Bryan

We then guessed who would win the head-to-head contest of every pair of teams (120 different possible contests — fifteen contests for each of sixteen teams). We then counted up which teams would win the most ties and ranked on that basis. In the event of a tie, the team which won the head-to-head was ranked higher.

(We might note that this got a little interesting, because one team could be ranked higher than another and still expect to lose to that team. The three top teams — Czech Republic, France, and Spain — showed this. We would expect the Czechs to beat the French, because Berdych would win both his singles matches and the Czechs would win the doubles. The French would beat Spain, because the French would win all four singles matches. But Spain would beat the Czechs, because Spain would win both singles matches against Stepanek and Marrero/Verdasco would win the doubles. This particular result has amazing applications, e.g. in voting theory, but we won’t bug you with it. The only significance to our problem is this: If the Czechs and France are in opposite halves of the Davis Cup draw, as they should be based on the team rankings although not the Davis Cup seedings, then France wins the Cup if the Spanish are in the Czech half, but the Czechs win the Cup if the Spanish are in the French half. Luck of the draw really does matter!)

Anyway, our team rankings are as follows:

1. Czech Republic: 14-1

2. France: 14-1

3. Spain: 13-2

4. Germany: 12-3

5. Canada: 11-4

6. USA: 11-4

7. Italy: 9-6

8. Switzerland: 7-8

9. Argentina: 6-9

10. Great Britain: 6-9

11. Japan: 5-10

12. Netherlands: 5-10

13. Australia: 4-11

14. Belgium: 2-13

15. Kazakhstan: 1-14

16. Serbia: 0-15

We repeat, this is a guess. And the teams may change. We’ll never know. It’s just a model anyway. But let’s look at the actual draw, with the rankings of the teams (with the SEEDS in CAPS):

1. CZECHS vs. 12. Netherlands

5. CANADA vs. 11. Japan

3. SPAIN vs. 4. Germany

2. FRANCE vs. 13. Australia

10. Great Britain vs. 6. UNITED STATES

7. Italy vs. 9. ARGENTINA

14. Belgium vs. 15. KAZAKHSTAN

8. Switzerland vs. 16. SERBIA

Note what we have: we have one extremely unfair tie (#3 Spain versus #4 Germany) and one ridiculously soft tie (#14 Belgium versus #15 Kazakhstan). We have three cases where the seed can expect to be upset (Italy versus Argentina, Belgium versus Kazakhstan, Switzerland versus Serbia). And we have the top five actual teams in the top half. It is a draw in which the Czechs — the top team either by Davis Cup our our reckoning — should win. But because the top half is so much stronger than the bottom, we will have at least one deserving team (Germany) in relegation, and at least one undeserving team (Belgium or Kazakhstan) in the quarterfinal, plus one team which is not in the Top Four (Italy or Switzerland or somebody) in the semifinal.

And it would have taken just one change in the draw (placing France in the bottom half) to produce a draw in which France would win the Cup.

It’s all hypothetical. We know that as well as you do. For one thing, it was very hard to guess the winners in some ties (those in which the singles split 2-2 and we had to guess the doubles results of guys who don’t usually play doubles). But it certainly shows that the draw makes a difference! Probably even more in Davis Cup than in regular events….

 

******** THIS WEEK IN TENNIS ********

 

THIS WEEK ON THE ATP WORLD TOUR:

Davis Cup

NEXT WEEK ON THE ATP WORLD TOUR:

Vina del Mar (250/Clay). Defending Champion: Horacio Zeballos

Montpellier (250/Indoor Hard). Defending Champion: Richard Gasquet

Zagreb (250/Indoor Hard). Defending Champion: Marin Cilic

******** STATS

 

RANKINGS

 

Estimated ATP World Tour Rankings

As of January 26, 2014

 

Rank &

Prior…Player………..Points

1..(1) Nadal………….14330

2..(2) Djokovic……….10620

3..(8) Wawrinka………..5710

4..(5) Del Potro……….5370

5..(3) Ferrer………….5280

6..(4) Murray………….4720

7..(7) Berdych…………4540

8..(6) Federer…………4355

9..(9) Gasquet…………3050

10.(10) Tsonga………….2885

11.(11) Raonic………….2770

12.(12) Haas……………2435

13.(13) Isner…………..2320

14.(15) Youzhny…………2145

15.(16) Fognini…………2100

16.(18) Robredo…………1980

17.(14) Almagro…………1930

18.(17) Nishikori……….1915

19.(22) Dimitrov………..1810

20.(19) Simon…………..1700

21.(20) Janowicz………..1615

22.(21) Anderson………..1580

23.(24) Gulbis………….1443

24.(28) Paire…………..1380

25.(30) Pospisil………..1359

26.(27) Lopez…………..1355

27.(23) Kohlschreiber……1330

28.(26) Tursunov………..1314

29.(32) Monfils…………1245

30.(37) Mayer…………..1245

**DRAWS

 

Australian Open (Slam — Weeks of January 13-26)

WINNER: Stanislas Wawrinka

…………………3R……………4R………….QF…………SF……..F

1 Nadal…………..(1)Nadal………Nadal……….Nadal………Nadal…..Nadal

25 Monfils………..(25)Monfils

24 Seppi………….Young

16 Nishikori………(16)Nishikori….Nishikori

 

11 Raonic…………(11)Raonic

22 Dimitrov……….(22)Dimitrov…..Dimitrov…….Dimitrov

27 Paire………….(27)Paire

5 Del Potro……….Bautista Agut….Bautista Agut

 

4 Murray………….(4)Murray……..Murray………Murray

26 Lopez………….(26)Lopez

[21 Kohlschreiber]…Robert(LL)…….Robert

13 Isner………….Klizan(LL)

 

10 Tsonga…………(10)Tsonga…….Tsonga

18 Simon………….(18)Simon

31 Verdasco……….Gabashvili

6 Federer…………(6)Federer…….Federer……..Federer….Federer

 

7 Berdych…………(7)Berdych…….Berdych……..Berdych….Berdych

32 Dodig………….Dzumhur

19 Anderson……….(19)Anderson…..Anderson

12 Haas…………..Roger-Vasselin

 

14 Youzhny………..F.Mayer……….Mayer

20 Janowicz……….(20)Janowicz

29 Chardy…………(29)Chardy

3 Ferrer………….(3)Ferrer……..Ferrer……..Ferrer

 

8 Wawrinka………..(8)Wawrinka……Wawrinka……Wawrinka….Wawrinka..Wawrinka

28 Pospisil……….(28)Pospisil

17 Robredo………..(17)Robredo……Robredo

9 Gasquet…………(9)Gasquet

 

15 Fognini………..(15)Fognini……Fognini

23 Gulbis…………Querrey

30 Tursunov……….Istomin

2 Djokovic………..(2)Djokovic……Djokovic…..Djokovic

 

STATUS OF SEEDS

1 Nadal…………..lost F (Wawrinka)

2 Djokovic………..lost QF (Wawrinka)

3 Ferrer………….lost QF (Berdych)

4 Murray………….lost QF (Federer)

5 Del Potro……….lost 2R (Bautista Agut)

6 Federer…………lost SF (Nadal)

7 Berdych…………lost SF (Wawrinka)

8 Wawrinka………..WON TOURNAMENT

9 Gasquet…………lost 3R (Robredo)

10 Tsonga…………lost 4R (Federer)

11 Raonic…………lost 3R (Dimitrov)

12 Haas…………..lost 1R (Garcia-Lopez)

13 Isner………….lost 1R (Klizan)

14 Youzhny………..lost 2R (Mayer)

15 Fognini………..lost 4R (Djokovic)

16 Nishikori………lost 4R (Nadal)

17 Robredo………..lost 4R (Stanislas)

18 Simon………….lost 3R (Tsonga)

19 Anderson……….lost 4R (Berdych)

20 Janowicz……….lost 3R (F. Mayer)

21 Kohlschreiber…..WITHDREW

22 Dimitrov……….lost QF (Nadal)

23 Gulbis…………lost 2R (Querrey)

24 Seppi………….lost 2R (Young)

25 Monfils………..lost 3R (Nadal)

26 Lopez………….lost 3R (Murray)

27 Paire………….lost 3R (Bautista Agut)

28 Pospisil……….WITHDREW from 3R

29 Chardy…………lost 3R (Ferrer)

30 Tursunov……….lost 2R (Istomin)

31 Verdasco……….lost 2R (Gabashvili)

32 Dodig………….lost 2R (Dzumhur)

******** SCORES *

 

SUNDAY

Australian Open

Singles – Final

(8) Stanislas Wawrinka def. (1) Rafael Nadal 6-3 6-2 3-6 6-3

Mixed Doubles – Final

Kristina Mladenovic/Daniel Nestor def. (6) Sania Mirza/Horia Tecau 6-3 6-2

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