Edit: Updated with final results and new official DC rankings, as in Drew's post below.
The World Group playoff draw is going to take place at 10 am on Wednesday 16 April, so here's a quick update to the list I compiled after we lost to Argentina, based on this weekend's Zone 1 results so far.
After the Argentina match, we are 20th (now 21st after the 14 April update) in the DC rankings and all of the other 7 WG R1 losers are now ranked above us:
BEL (12, still 12th), KOR (13, still 13th), SRB (14, now 18th), ROM (15, now 14th), ISR (17, now 16th), PER (18, now 20th), AUT (19, now 15th)
The zonal playoffs at the weekend were won by:
CRO (4, now 5th) - beat ITA 3-2 this weekend, though somehow Bolelli beat Karlovic and Seppi beat Cilic on indoor hard in Croatia! SVK (9, now 8th) - beat GEO 4-1 this weekend, despite Labadze's 19-17 final set win! AUS (10, still 10th) - beat THA 5-0 this weekend CHI (22, now 19th) - beat CAN 3-2 this weekend BRA (24, now 22nd) - beat COL 4-1 this weekend SUI (25, now 17th) - beat BLR 4-1 this weekend, despite missing Fed again IND (26, now 24th) - beat JPN 3-2 this weekend NED (32, now 23rd) - beat MKD 4-1 this weekend
Hence we will be up against one of the following teams:
CRO (5) away SVK (8) home AUS (10) home BEL (12) home KOR (13) by lot ROM (14) away AUT (15) home ISR (16) away
-- Edited by steven at 17:39, 2008-04-14
-- Edited by steven at 11:10, 2008-07-31
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GB on a shirt, Davis Cup still gleaming, 79 years of hurt, never stopped us dreaming ... 29/11/2015 that dream came true!
Good draws = Slovakia, Koria, Belgium, Peru Okay draws = Australia, Israel, Romania Bad draws = Croatia, Serbia
So there's a good chance we'll be in a position to get back into the world group then.
Serbia away would be a terrible draw as we wouldn't be able to beat them on a clay clay court, while Croatia would be tough would actually winnable if Murray wins all 3 ties.
Australia are a 1 man team in Hewitt, while Romania would play us on clay and Israel is not a good place to go and we'd probably need Baker/Boggo to win 1 rubber.
Slovakia would be a great draw, as would Korea or Peru (even though we'd have to play on clay if drawn away, I'd still back Baker/Boggo to do the job and we wouldn't need Murray), while Belgium would be easily beatable
To update then....the 8 Seeds incl tie location, Ranking and the GB H2H
H Australia 10 - L 8/4 H Austria 15 - W 7/3 H Belgium 12 - W 7/3 A Croatia 5 - W 1/0 A Israel 16 - W 3/1 L Korea 13 - N/A A Romania 14 - D 4/4 H Slovak Republic 8 - L 0/1
I'm amazed the rankings changed so much that Serbia fell out of the seedings (it must be because they have won DC ties the last two Aprils, one of them away to us), but that's excellent news. It means there's now a slightly better than even chance of getting a good and/or home draw whereas with Serbia seeded, there was a slightly worse than even chance of either of those two things happening.
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GB on a shirt, Davis Cup still gleaming, 79 years of hurt, never stopped us dreaming ... 29/11/2015 that dream came true!
not so bad imo, if boggo or baker can find some grass court form (or if boggo can fidnt he right end of hsi racquet to start with!) then we have a good chance. murray should win both ties. doubles will be tight.
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Count Zero - Creator of the Statistical Tennis Extrapolation & Verification ENtity or, as we like to call him, that steven.