Davis Cup - Euro Africa Zone I 2009

steven · Tennis legend

Davis Cup - Euro Africa Zone I 2009

Count Zero · Tennis legend

poland at home :)
maybe nathii would come.

who plays for poland btw?

Akhenaten · Pro player

We might get Preg Rusevski! biggrin

This is the complete list of ranked Macedonian players...

615    Rusevski, Predrag (MKD)
848    Martinoski, Illija (MKD)
1024    Grabulovski, Dimitar (MKD)
1734    Deari, Shendrit (MKD)
1844    Magdincev, Lazar (MKD)

I'd hope we could win that one. Andy or no Andy. Boggo or no Boggo.

ForeverDelayed · Grand Slam Champion

Italy is the team to avoid, as that would be on the slowest clay court they can find, and even Andy Murray may not be able to get us the win their, as it would mean we'd have to win the doubles rubber which would be a 50/50 match.

South Africa wouldn't be nice either as with Anderson/de Voest/Coetzee/Moodie, we'd probably need Andy there as well and hope we can beat de Voest in the 5th rubber.

Ukraine are beatable as we should win the doubles and the two ties against Bubka, and Poland don't have any singles players to be overly worried about, although they'd probably win the doubles (and the fact the players and the coach don't get really and they have selected some bizarre teams)

Macedonia would be the gift draw, as even away on the clay I think we'd have enough to win, even without Andy, but it would be a bit nervewracking - Macedonia at home and we could play Cox and Evans and we'd beat them.

DUSTY DICK · Club Coach

Whoever we play i think now is the time to let some of the younger ones coming up have a go. John Lloyd hinted at that himself. It would be a fantastic opportunity to blood some new guys. OK we might not win but at least we will have given them a go. We know what Andy can do and on the right day Jamie and Ross but it is always the same, not enough depth to the team. I'll support whoever we use even Boggo who did his best at the end of the day and is our current number 2 but it would be interesting to possibly leave Andy out next April and go with some totally different guys and see what happens. The worst that can happen is we lose but we are used to that already in DC and maybe it is better to drop back a bit and try and experiment to put a different side together hopefully to build upon for the future.

steven · Tennis legend

'SCOUTING REPORT'

The top five singles players (and notable doubles players) for each of the five teams we could meet:

ITALY

28 Seppi, Andreas
45 Bolelli, Simone
72 Fognini, Fabio
76 Starace, Potito
98 Volandri, Filippo

Only Flavio Cipolla is in the top 100 for doubles, but the Italians have 8 players in the doubles top 140. Away to Italy (on the slowest of slow clay) would be the worst draw we could get, I think. No chance of winning without Andy, tough even with him.

This year, Italy lost 3-2 to Mario Ancic in Croatia - Bolelli beat Karlovic and Seppi beat Cilic, which is quite a feat on a superfast court - then beat Latvia 3-2 (losing two singles rubbers to Gulbis) to avoid relegation.

SOUTH AFRICA

118 Anderson, Kevin
170 De Voest, Rik
258 Van der Merwe, Izak
372 Moodie, Wesley
417 Wolmarans, Fritz

Coetzee is ranked 13 in doubles, Moodie 22nd, de Voest 50th and Haggard 98th. Away from home, we would very likely lose without Andy and might well need our no. 2 singles player to beat de Voest in the 5th rubber even if Andy was playing.

RSA were promoted from EA II this year, beating Finland 4-1, Denmark 5-0 and Monaco 3-2, though Monaco's two points both came from dead rubbers after RSA went 3-0 up.

POLAND

189 Kubot, Lukasz
212 Olejniczak, Dawid
344 Janowicz, Jerzy
353 Panfil, Grzegorz
428 Gawron, Marcin

Fyrstenberg/Matkowski are one of the top 10 doubles pairings in the world, of course, and Kubot is also in the doubles top 100. However, our Challenger-level players would have a good chance in the singles rubbers, especially given that we'd play them on a fast court at home.

Poland lost 4-1 to Switzerland (Wawrinka & Bohli) this year then beat Belarus 4-1. Both matches were played away.

UKRAINE

83 Stakhovsky, Sergiy
213 Marchenko, Ilia
285 Bubka, Sergei
336 Sergeyev, Ivan
415 Dolgopolov Jr., Oleksandr

At home, we'd win with Andy and have an even chance without him.

Ukraine were promoted from EA II this year, beating Egypt 5-0, Ireland 3-2 and Portugal 5-0.

FYR MACEDONIA

615 Rusevski, Predrag
848 Martinoski, Illija
1024 Grabulovski, Dimitar
1734 Deari, Shendrit
1844 Magdincev, Lazar

We should win this home or away, even without Andy, though if they play in the one R1 tie, they'll go out before we have a chance to meet them.

However, part of the reason why they are still in EA I is because they beat Latvia 4-1 earlier this year, with Magdincev (then ranked in the 700s) taking out Ernests Gulbis in five sets in the 1st rubber - see http://www.aerodrom.gov.mk/en/R7-arhiva.aspx?item=527 - they then lost 4-1 to the Netherlands.

P.S. It looks like there were only three seeds in EA I this year, though I think that's a mistake on the DC site, i.e. there should be a seed mark next to Belarus. If it isn't a mistake, then we could also get Belarus, for whom Max is the only notable player - they lost 4-1 to Poland this year and are only seeded ahead of them thanks to them having beaten Spain to reach the WG QFs in 2006 when Voltchkov was still around to team up with the Beast.

Akhenaten · Pro player

steven wrote:

...

POLAND

189 Kubot, Lukasz
212 Olejniczak, Dawid
344 Janowicz, Jerzy
353 Panfil, Grzegorz
428 Gawron, Marcin

Fyrstenberg/Matkowski are one of the top 10 doubles pairings in the world, of course, and Kubot is also in the doubles top 100. However, our Challenger-level players would have a good chance in the singles rubbers, especially given that we'd play them on a fast court at home.

Poland lost 4-1 to Switzerland (Wawrinka & Bohli) this year then beat Belarus 4-1. Both matches were played away.

...

Jerzy Janowicz is dangerous though. He's the 2008 Roland Garros Junior runner-up & 2007 US Open Junior runner-up.

He beat Max Mirnyi 6-4 7-5 6-4 in the Davis Cup in July.

He's 17 and has already won 3 Futures. And reached a Challenger semi last week. He'll only be better come April!

Vandenburg · Futures level

i agree Italians would be awful away from home, and i would not be 100% confident of players wanting to go to Joburg(theres a reason why SA only has a challanger.

steven · Tennis legend

It's got a main tour event from next year.

Btw, you can catch the draw on DC Radio at www.Daviscup.com from 11.30 UK time tomorrow, Tuesday.

Drew · Sep 22, 2008

According to the BBC interview with Draper he is looking forward to a tie in 'May'

-- Edited by Drew at 21:27, 2008-09-22

steven · Tennis legend

Well, I admit I may be vague about the date, but I'm pretty sure the head of GB tennis is simply wrong ...

ForeverDelayed · Grand Slam Champion

Must admit I forgot about Janowicz, so Poland wouldn't be quite as easy I first thought they'd be.

Draper may be looking forward to a tie in May, but that's not exactly close to being correct....

Davis Cup round 1 next year is the week of March 2nd, while round 2 is the week of July 6th.... neither really that close to May!!!

Madeline · Admin:Moderator + Tennis Legend

I have been reading the online Press, and two of them quote a date of May 8-10 for the tie. The Telegraph is certainly one, and the other is one of the Times, Independent or Guardian (I can't remember which).

Where do you get the July date from? Are you using this year's Calendar? Although I can't find any details, I know DC dates are being changed next year to a schedule more to suit the players.

steven · Tennis legend

I shared FD's scepticism about this, but unfortunately it looks like Rog was correct.

On the DC site it says:

World Group 1st Round 6-8 March
World Group Quarterfinals 10-12 July
World Group Semifinals and Play-offs 18-20 September
World Group Final 4-6 December

... but there is always an additional (non-WG) DC slot to cater for the fact that if a team loses in the round that GB will be playing in next year, they may have to play a pre-relegation tie before possibly facing a relegation tie in September.

e.g. in 2006, we got a bye in EAZ R1 so didn't play in Feb, lost to Serbia in April in the tie to decide who got into the WG POs, lost to Israel in July in a pre-relegation playoff and beat Ukraine in September in the relegation playoff - see http://www.daviscup.com/results/ea1.asp and select year 2006.

The extra slot is usually in July after Wimby and is reserved for R2 losers who had R1 byes, but next year it's May and all the EAZ R2 ties will be played then instead.

That seems like crackpot scheduling to me though - it's the week of Estoril, Amersfoort and Munich, i.e. the week after Rome AMS and the week before Madrid AMS, both on clay, with Roland Garros due to start a week after Madrid AMS finishes.

I doubt that any of the top players would dare to play a DC tie at that time of year, especially not on any surface other than clay, and it implies to me that the ATP believe that none of the top 50 players play for countries in Zone 1, which is clearly rubbish. In fact, only Seppi and Bolelli (whose country would choose to play on clay anyway) plus Andy out of those eligible to play for countries in EA I are in the top 50 in singles, but Gulbis/Latvia are going to be playing in EA II and top 50 players playing for teams outside the World Group is hardly unusual.

The most likely possibilities I can think of:

1) We get an away tie on clay (which probably means Italy) and Andy might play.

2) We get a home tie and play on clay so Andy might play (but then we don't win any of the other rubbers) or on indoor hard and Andy won't play.

3) If we draw another team that has a bye in R1, JL tries to arrange the tie for the R1 slot (there is recent precedent for this), but I don't see there being much incentive for the opponents to agree to this unless they have players in the same boat.

It seems like the DC timetable changes that are designed to make things easier for the top players in the World Group (who will also get ranking points for DC next year, an idea with so many fairness flaws that I don't even know where to begin!) are going to end up shafting our top player, and by extension our team.

Drew · Sep 23, 2008

Ukraine at Home 8-10 May or earlier...good !

That was a nice draw. I will be there !