Davis Cup - Euro Africa Zone Group II R1 v Tunisia (home) - 4-6 March 2011

steven · Tennis legend

RE: Davis Cup - Euro Africa Zone Group II R1 - 4-6 March 2011

British_is_Best · County player

Looking at that list I would say that the only teams that I would not want to draw would be Ireland and Bosnia. Any of the rest I would say that GB should be beating as a lot of those teams are completely reliant on one player, for example Cyprus (Baghdatis), Luxembourg (Muller), Bulgaria (Dimitrov), Morocco (EL Amrani), Denmark (Nielsen) etc. So at the very least GB should be able to win a tie 3-2 with Ward possibly having a chance to beat a few of those names. None of the teams have any doubles players of note either. Obviously this is all based on the assumption that Andy won't play although I think there might be a chance he would show up if we played Ireland

steven · Tennis legend

steven wrote:
Slovenia ended up beating Lithuania and Poland beat Latvia. Three of the teams that won today were teams we were due to play an away tie against, thus increasing the chances that we will get one or more home ties next year. Only Monaco would definitely be away (which would be nice in the summer!), HUN, LTU, LUX & MAR would definitely be at home and if we play any of the other 10 teams, home advantage will be decided by lot.

With less teams to check results previous September results for, I can now go a bit further with the rankings (subject to confirmation when the new rankings come out on Tuesday) and say that the four seeded teams will be Latvia, GB, Belarus & Lithuania in that order (Belarus won a G1 relegation playoff against Georgia in 2008 and the 80 points coming off from that mean we'll stay above them), which should mean that the one team we can't possibly play next year will be Latvia, i.e. Gulbis and co.

So, possible March opponents are Hungary, Luxembourg or Morocco at home; Monaco away; Bulgaria, Bosnia & Hercegovina, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Greece, Ireland or Tunisia home or away to be decided by lot. (i.e. the same as LT's list above plus BIH)

Looking again at this, it appears that they seed 8 teams in G2, not just the 4 'expected' to get to the promotion playoffs.

Based on the July rankings, that would mean we couldn't play Cyprus, Monaco, Bosnia or Ireland in March - none of them are carrying points from September wins, so it shouldn't be possible for any of them to have dropped below any of the other teams in G2 since then.

That should please British_is_Best (gets rid of the two teams he was worried about), OEM (gets rid of Cyprus with or without Baggy) and me (Monaco away would be in the summer months!), though of course those teams would be prime candidates for us to meet in R2 if we manage to win in March.

-- Edited by steven on Monday 20th of September 2010 02:35:36 PM

Count Zero · Tennis legend

can you do a new list?

LadyTigress · County player

I was just going to post a reminder that the March 2011 draw is going to be on Wednesday 22nd September at 10:30 GMT live from Brussels on Radio Davis Cup on their website.

According to the news section of the DC website, the seeds have been drawn Count, and the seedings for EA II are as follows:

1. GREAT BRITAIN
2. LATVIA
3. BELARUS
4. LITHUANIA
5. CYPRUS
6. BOSNIA/HERZEGOVINA
7. MONACO
8. IRELAND

This means we will definitely avoid the seven other teams on that list in the first round, and will instead face an opponent in March from the following selection:

Bulgaria
Denmark
Estonia
Greece
Hungary
Luxembourg
Morocco
Tunisia

smile

Does that help?

Josh · Challenger level

So from the first post:

Bulgaria - lot
Denmark - lot
Estonia - lot
Greece - lot
Hungary - home
Luxembourg - home
Morocco - home
Tunisia - lot

Bulgaria and Luxembourg with Dimitrov and Muller would be the teams to avoid I guess?

indiana · Tennis legend

Count Zero wrote:

can you do a new list?

biggrin

Suffering from information overload ?

-- Edited by indiana on Monday 20th of September 2010 05:10:18 PM

Count Zero · Tennis legend

indiana wrote:

Count Zero wrote:

can you do a new list?

Suffering from information overload ?

-- Edited by indiana on Monday 20th of September 2010 05:10:18 PM

indeed

thanks LT & Josh.

British_is_Best · County player

steven wrote:

steven wrote:
Slovenia ended up beating Lithuania and Poland beat Latvia. Three of the teams that won today were teams we were due to play an away tie against, thus increasing the chances that we will get one or more home ties next year. Only Monaco would definitely be away (which would be nice in the summer!), HUN, LTU, LUX & MAR would definitely be at home and if we play any of the other 10 teams, home advantage will be decided by lot.

With less teams to check results previous September results for, I can now go a bit further with the rankings (subject to confirmation when the new rankings come out on Tuesday) and say that the four seeded teams will be Latvia, GB, Belarus & Lithuania in that order (Belarus won a G1 relegation playoff against Georgia in 2008 and the 80 points coming off from that mean we'll stay above them), which should mean that the one team we can't possibly play next year will be Latvia, i.e. Gulbis and co.

So, possible March opponents are Hungary, Luxembourg or Morocco at home; Monaco away; Bulgaria, Bosnia & Hercegovina, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Greece, Ireland or Tunisia home or away to be decided by lot. (i.e. the same as LT's list above plus BIH)
Looking again at this, it appears that they seed 8 teams in G2, not just the 4 'expected' to get to the promotion playoffs.

Based on the July rankings, that would mean we couldn't play Cyprus, Monaco, Bosnia or Ireland in March - none of them are carrying points from September wins, so it shouldn't be possible for any of them to have dropped below any of the other teams in G2 since then.

That should please British_is_Best (gets rid of the two teams he was worried about), OEM (gets rid of Cyprus with or without Baggy) and me (Monaco away would be in the summer months!), though of course those teams would be prime candidates for us to meet in R2 if we manage to win in March.

-- Edited by steven on Monday 20th of September 2010 02:35:36 PM

That does indeed please me greatly! In which case I agree with Josh in that Bulgaria and Luxembourg would be the ones to avoid, but even there we should be winning 3-2. Gazing into a crystal ball slightly the best draw would be something like this: R1- anyone bar the two mentioned above, R2- Monaco (failing that Cyprus), R3- Belarus and then back into Group 1. Simples! wink

LadyTigress · County player

Is anyone else tuned in? They're still replaying a round up of yesterday's news, but ought to have started the Live from Brussels transmission five minutes ago...

EDIT: It's now just started, about ten minutes late. They're starting with congratulating the teams for this year and will probably start by announcing the World Group ties.

EDIT: My mistake they are doing Euro/Africa Zone 2 NOW.

-- Edited by LadyTigress on Wednesday 22nd of September 2010 10:42:25 AM

LadyTigress · County player

We're playing Tunisia and it's by lot. And it will be... Britain's choice (so probably at home).

Possible Ireland in round two.

LadyTigress · County player

This is the draw for our group:

1. GREAT BRITAIN vs Tunisia in Britain
2. IRELAND vs Luxembourg in Ireland
3. BELARUS vs Bulgaria in Belarus
4. CYPRUS vs Hungary in Cyprus

5. BOSNIA/HERZEGOVINA vs Morocco in Morocco
6. LITHUANIA vs Estonia in Estonia
7. MONACO vs Denmark in Denmark
8. LATVIA vs Greece in Greece

EDIT: Perhaps a mod can now edit the thread title to reflect our match up? smile

Steven, can you enlighten us about the Tunisians?

Assuming that we win the tie, as aforementioned a possible tie against Ireland awaits us, for the second year in a row. Of course, it was discussed earlier that Ireland was one of the teams we wanted to avoid. Round after that, assuming we get through? Possibly Cyprus, and if they play Baghdatis it might be worth us bringing out the big guns otherwise that one could be terribly difficult. Depends if Baghdatis is played.

-- Edited by LadyTigress on Wednesday 22nd of September 2010 10:55:24 AM

indiana · Tennis legend

From Steven's earlier posts it would appear that any Luxembourg tie would be at home and an Ireland tie subject to lot.

From my memory of last year, they drew all the required lots at the time of the initial draw and drew separately ( for some strange reason :hmm; ) for the two possibilities, it being a meeting of winners or a meeting of losers !

steven · Tennis legend

Davis Cup - Euro Africa Zone Group II R1 v Tunisia (home) - 4-6 March 2011

LadyTigress · County player

Sigh. Yes. And Greece too! Would've been nice to have had a holiday in Monaco or Greece! At least we're not off to any of the Baltic states in March. Again, as last year, Ireland is close and could be a nice place to visit, but in terms of the tie, the DC commentators seemed to think we were screwed if we get Ireland in the next round. I think we will win against Tunisia, so I'm keeping fingers crossed that we get Luxembourg in July, and then hopefully not Cyprus for the promotion match. At least we can be fairly confident that we won't face relegation this time by getting a win against Tunisia first tie of the year.

Thanks for the info on Tunisia, Steven. Who do you think we're likely to match up against in later rounds?