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

johnnylad · Tennis legend

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

Count Zero · Tennis legend

But one of the singles guys will be trimmed as the final squad can only contain 4 guys right. i don't know if a 5th can be brought in in case of injury once the tie has actually started.

johnnylad · Tennis legend

yeah - I'm just saying I think we're as obsessed with doubles specialists being the bees knees as Roger Draper is.

Doubles specialists worth a DC place:

Bryan bros - Check
Paes/Bhupathi - Check
Matkowski/Frystenburg - Check
Llodra - Check
Any Brit - No!!!

Our doubles specialists offer very little that our singles players can't compensate for.
Dave Sherwood has won a DC doubles rubber hasn't he?

We're playing bloody Tunisia at home for goodness sake

indiana · Tennis legend

Count Zero wrote:

But one of the singles guys will be trimmed as the final squad can only contain 4 guys right. i don't know if a 5th can be brought in in case of injury once the tie has actually started.

I can't see anyone being allowed in because of injury. As you rightly say it's a final squad of 4 so it's up to the teams to put out 2 players each day and have decent cover, which is why if picking 2 specialist doubles players within the 4, picking Colin makes sense.

It has really always for Davis Cup been a choice between 3 singles players with one good enough to play the doubles tie or 2 doubles player with one that you feel can back-up as a singles player in case there is an issue with one of the two chosen singles players.

Count Zero · Tennis legend

Oh right, yeah i tend to agree there, i think 1 dubs specialist is enough, and paired with Boggo/Ward/Baker then they could do a job esp as we are npt up against a specialist pairing

wolf · Tennis legend

johnnylad wrote:

Our doubles specialists offer very little that our singles players can't compensate for.
Dave Sherwood has won a DC doubles rubber hasn't he?

We're playing bloody Tunisia at home for goodness sake

We could beat Tunisia at home by playing the doubles specialists in the singles so why don't we do that? disbelief

Brilliant logic.

indiana · Tennis legend

I can see johnnylad's arguement.

While I do think undoubtably our 4 top doubles players do offer more and are more reliable purely looking at the doubles, there is more to be considered and it is the selection balancing act that I mentioned.

Colin is indeed probably the best singles players among the top 4 doubles guys, but in this tie what's the main risk ? Playing a doubles match with a more specialist singles player having to play doubles or maybe having to play Colin in singles ( who has not played much competitive singles at all lately ) because one of the two singles players is injured / has major form issues or whatever ?

Colin has presumably partly been selected in the five because the going with two doubles players in the final four is still an option ( the very fact that two have been picked in the five must suggest it is being considered ), but I wonder whether at the moment that is their main leaning. My suspition is that it is.

But we shall see, we may still indeed be at the keeping all options open stage.

johnnylad · Tennis legend

IMO:
Fleming would lose in singles. Hutchins would lose in singles. JMurray would lose in singles. Skupski might have a chance in singles.

Unitl Ken/Colin/Jamie/Ross make the top 20 in doubles I'd pick a top 400 singles player over them every time

indiana · Tennis legend

wolf wrote:

johnnylad wrote:

Our doubles specialists offer very little that our singles players can't compensate for.
Dave Sherwood has won a DC doubles rubber hasn't he?

We're playing bloody Tunisia at home for goodness sake

We could beat Tunisia at home by playing the doubles specialists in the singles so why don't we do that?

Brilliant logic.

Yes, we could possibly, but are you so sure any of our doubles players would indeed beat their likely singles players at singles ? This is a tie that should be very difficult to lose. But as I asked what is the main danger of not winning it ? To me, it is not at all unreasonable to suggest that that is perhaps having to play Colin in the singles as against playing a more specialist singles player in doubles.

Unlike johnnylad, I think there may be occasions where the two doubles players makes sense, eg where there is more threat in the doubles opposition. But in this particular tie and bearing in mind none of the doubles players ( including Colin ) do I see as any sort of shoe-in if they have to play singles, then it is a legitimate debate.

-- Edited by indiana on Monday 21st of February 2011 05:30:35 PM

johnnylad · Tennis legend

wolf wrote:

johnnylad wrote:

Our doubles specialists offer very little that our singles players can't compensate for.
Dave Sherwood has won a DC doubles rubber hasn't he?

We're playing bloody Tunisia at home for goodness sake

We could beat Tunisia at home by playing the doubles specialists in the singles so why don't we do that?

Brilliant logic.

Comparing the logic I prefer mine to yours.

wolf · Tennis legend

Except I wasn't trying to use logic, so....

Spectator · All-time great

Agree with Llodra as pick, but not necessarily as a "doubles specialist." He's 3rd highest ranked French man in singles -- 27th -- as well as highest in doubles. Would tend to think of him as (if pun permitted) a "double threat." (Yes, even after the finals.)

On the UK side, singles picks look good. Glad that Smith has gone with Bogdanovic, and that Bogdanovic feels enough confidence to take part. Hope he does really well. He deserves the chance. Indeed all three seem to be hardworking, solid players -- a team one can really support. On doubles side, potential combination not the first one that would spring to mind (and ironic given the pairings this week), but presumably wheels set in motion before Skupski's recent run of excellent results.

philwrig · Hall of fame

Boggo back in the lineup, now I didn't see that coming. Would be interesting to know who approached who, maybe the Count knows about that one. Gone with experience which is easily the right call for a must win tie. If either Cox or Milton were in the same class as Andy/ our current crop of juniors then for sure this would be a different call but they're not and are also anyways struggling at the moment. The doubles specialists selected has a sniff of already having been selected before last weeks good runs by Skupski and Fleming/Hutchins and a quick rethink could have been taken to incorporate either Skupski/ Hutchins instead of Jamie. Anyway it doesn't matter cause this will be 5-0 to us, surely !?

steven · Tennis legend

I agree with the comments on here that since we don't have a world-beating doubles pair, it's probably more sensible to include a third singles specialist who is decent at doubles than a second doubles specialist who is ok at singles and maybe that's what Leon will end up doing, who knows.

The exception to that would be if the singles were very likely to go 2-2, e.g. if we had Andy playing against a team with two players in the 50-100 range or we didn't have Andy playing and the opponents had one singles player ranked higher than our players and one much lower-ranked, as happened in both ties last year.

However, if he does decide to go for the specialist doubles option, then I think it does make sense to include Colin as likely to be the most reliable player if he did have to be drafted in for singles because of an injury. I don't think there's much difference in doubles quality between the top four Brits - they are all more than good enough for DC doubles at this level and it strikes me that the order they are ranked in at any given time is largely dependent on the partners they have been playing with and how much their draws have opened up. That opinion would probably have to be revised if one of them started breaking into the top 20 though.

I agree too with the comment that it should all be a bit irrelevant given that we are playing Tunisia at home, but I think Leon's right to pick a team and prepare as if we were playing a stronger nation - something can always go wrong (an injury after the tie starts, perhaps even during a rubber we seemed certain to win) and you don't want to suddenly end up in a crisis because you thought it was going to be too easy and didn't pay much attention to the team you picked - that really would be unforgiveable.

Count Zero · Tennis legend

some more comments from Leon:

I have not made up my mind yet who the two singles players will be and Ive told them that. I will see how they get on.
Fortunately the players are all at the National Training Centre this week and then we move up to Bolton on Sunday, so we have plenty of time together.
We have the players to win this tie, that is for sure. I am not contemplating defeat, but we need to apply ourselves very seriously to get the job done.

And on Alex:

"It didn't suit Alex to play in that tie, but he never said he didn't want to play Davis Cup.He's very keen to play and very motivated. He's a much better player than his ranking might suggest. He's slipped a bit largely because he hardly played at the end of last year because of a back problem. The autumn has been when he's picked up a lot of his ranking points in the past."

i do feel sorry for the guys, having to go up to Bolton as early as Sunday wink

Still nice to see him highlighting Boggo's injury as a reason for his decline (even if only 1 paper has run it so far). Fact is since USO last year he's only played 5 tournamnets in 6 months, and i guess by his next event it will be 5 in 7 months.