Interesting re the Millenium Stadium as the final venue that now won't be with it of course having a roof and ever so slightly meeting the capacity minimum.

I'd thought a raised hard court for Wimbledon Centre Court had been an interesting idea I'd heard, but that seemed anathema to those who counted. Oh it would effect the grass, that whole week hidden away ( OK, possibly rather more, I don't know the practicalities ) and no old boy we just can't be having that anyway.

Anyway, unless Florence and the Machine are on the Belgian leg of their European tour, presumably the Belgians have some options.

-- Edited by indiana on Sunday 20th of September 2015 11:44:42 PM

I think it's very much the Murray brothers who have won themselves a Davis Cup final place. The other guys have played a part but it's pretty much a two-man (and primarily one-man) show.

But look at last year's winners - the Fed-Stan team (sounds like it should be a remote Asian country) were a two-man team - who knows the third Swiss player? Or when he played ?

It's the nature of the beast.

In France, the national level veteran team competitions insist on at least one new person playing the doubles (after the two singles). In the final phase, you have to have two new players. So two singles and two new doubles players.

The Davis Cup could do the same, if they cared. One extra player in the lower groups. Two extra players in the World group.

But they don't so I assume they don't care, so neither do I - it's a Murray team.

I'd wondered how he would handle the 02 - my recollection is that you can't opt out, though.

On the question of the team ... here's a tweet from American correspondent Ben Rothenberg:

"We'll know soon whom US #DavisCup team faces in 2016 R1won't be Brits. Rule 18c spares America from James Ward III"

(Rule 18c says that if two teams have met in the first round in consecutive years, they will be drawn in different halves)

A useful recognition that Mr Ward's win against the US was key: it's one of the few countries where the doubles point was unlikely to go to us. No win there, no QF. No SF. No final. That he hasn't set the world on fire since is irrelevant.

Like Indiana, I also think it's important not to underestimate Jamie Murray. Andy Murray with a lesser doubles partner might well not have won the doubles point against either the French or the Australians. On Saturday, in particular, it very much looked to me as if Jamie Murray was doing his best to make sure that his brother wouldn't have to move more than was necessary. And his (the senior Mr Murray's) play was superb.

Well done to them all - including those who didn't play, and the coaches and staff. Just brilliant.

Stircrazy wrote:

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Bob in Spain wrote:

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Some are tweeting rumours this morning that Andy may "opt out" of the O2 finals to prepare for the DC Final. Contractually, can he do that ?

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Reported by the Beeb.  The article doesn't raise the thorny issue of contractual obligations.

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It's pretty clear from the ATP rules:

"C. Failure To Participate in the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals 1) If a player, qualified for the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals as a direct acceptance or designated as the alternate, fails or refuses to participate in this event, except for bona fide injury or other reason which constitutes good cause, the player shall not be in good standing. 2) All direct acceptances and the alternate must appear at the site of the event(s) as determined by the ATP and participate in the pre-tournament media conference. Failure to appear shall result in a penalty of five percent (5%) of total ATP prize money earned during the ATP circuit year."

Presumably that means 5% of total prize money in all ATP events. His total prize money for 2015 is $5.9m, of which about half comes from the slams, so the penalty would be about $150,000. The 'not in good standing' bit is actually more important - it means that he would be ineligible for this year's bonus pool, which could otherwise net him about $1 million if he ends the year ranked 3.

It may well be that he thinks this is a loss worth making in order to win the Davis Cup, but even so, why has he said this now when he could have kept quiet and then pulled out just before the WTF citing bona fide back niggles but hoping to recover in time for the DC Final? (I assume even the ATP would have preferred that kind of fiction - they don't like players who might affect ticket sales pulling out too early - keeping the paying customers fully informed before they make their purchasing decisions would be like, shock horror, putting the interests of the fans first ...)

So maybe the idea is to make the Belgians wonder whether they'd prefer to put the Final on clay or have Andy exhausted from playing in the WTFs and he's saying this now to let them know they can't have it both ways, hoping (probably somewhat forlornly) that they'll choose another surface instead.

Edit: the 5% penalty mentioned above may apply only if he doesn't fulfill media commitments after pulling out - it's not completely clear whether the last paragraph of ATP rule 4.01C applies only to subsection 2 of 4.01C or to all of it.

-- Edited by steven on Monday 21st of September 2015 02:52:27 PM

I think that if the ATP are going to be so anal, Andy will end up playing a match and then be injured. It's ridiculous.
I agree with Eddie the Eagle, if they want to have a good DC tournie, then they need to make concessions to the top players in it.

Times reporting today Bedene confident of winning his appeal, heard on 16th November, but he's unlikely to play this year due to his feeling that the others have done it to get this far.

They didn't keep Rusedski out for old times' sake. He turned British in June 1995 then played for GB in Davis Cup the next month. If Bedene's available and the tie's on clay he seems an obvious runner for selection. His comments may be more intended to ameliorate a potentially embarrassing situation that could arise if he wins his appeal at a point where he remains an, if not the, obvious form player.