Week 37 - 2023 Davis Cup Finals, Group Stage - (Indoor Hard)

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

RE: Week 37 - Davis Cup Finals, Group Stage - (Indoor Hard)

Stircrazy · Tennis legend

Dan & Neal sadly unable to prevent the Aussies from snaffling the doubles:

R3: AUS (Matthew Ebden & Max Purcell, CR 53 [8+45]) defeated GB (Daniel Evans & Neal Skupski CR 118 [115+3]) by 7-6(5) 6-4

Final result: GB 2 AUS 1

Smudge226 · Strong Club Player

Helen40 wrote:
I wonder how much the home advantage is having an effect. Seems kind of unfair.

It might seem logical but thus far Spain have lost in Spain, Croatia have lost in Croatia and Italy have lost in Italy.

seagull · Hall of fame

Team selection be interesting for Switzerland. Dan has an awful h2h against Stan so imagine Cam will play at 1. Unless you go Andy and Jack

Blue_Belle · Club Coach

seagull wrote:
Team selection be interesting for Switzerland. Dan has an awful h2h against Stan so imagine Cam will play at 1. Unless you go Andy and Jack

I would go with Andy Vs Stan. Battle of the oldies

indiana · Tennis legend

seagull wrote:
Team selection be interesting for Switzerland. Dan has an awful h2h against Stan so imagine Cam will play at 1. Unless you go Andy and Jack

If Jack and Dan are both fit and well and good to go, I'd say same again - Jack and Dan for singles, Neal & Dan for doubles.

Dan's H2H vs Stan is indeed 0-5 but the sorelines aren't bad. The 2016 5 set L32 US Open so close loss when Stan ultimately won the title, being followed by 4 other generally reasonably close matches in 2019 and 2020. And more importantly for me, Dan won his match well today.

If France beat Australia and then we beat Switzerland we will then clearly finish in the top 2 before the match vs France, and on to Malaga. No messing please, especially if France do win that first match.

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

Smudge226 wrote:
Helen40 wrote:
I wonder how much the home advantage is having an effect. Seems kind of unfair.
It might seem logical but thus far Spain have lost in Spain, Croatia have lost in Croatia and Italy have lost in Italy.

And last year in glasgow hardly helped our team.

indiana · Tennis legend

JonH comes home wrote:
Smudge226 wrote:
Helen40 wrote:
I wonder how much the home advantage is having an effect. Seems kind of unfair.
It might seem logical but thus far Spain have lost in Spain, Croatia have lost in Croatia and Italy have lost in Italy.
And last year in glasgow hardly helped our team.

Leon's selections hardly helped our team.

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

indiana wrote:
seagull wrote:
Team selection be interesting for Switzerland. Dan has an awful h2h against Stan so imagine Cam will play at 1. Unless you go Andy and Jack
If Jack and Dan are both fit and well and good to go, I'd say same again - Jack and Dan for singles, Neal & Dan for doubles.
Dan's H2H vs Stan is indeed 0-5 but the sorelines aren't bad. The 2016 5 set L32 US Open so close loss when Stan ultimately won the title, being followed by 4 other generally reasonably close matches in 2019 and 2020. And more importantly for me, Dan won his match well today.
If France beat Australia and then we beat Switzerland we will then clearly finish in the top 2 before the match vs France, and on to Malaga. No messing please, especially if France do win that first match.

Andy also got thrashed by Stan recently, I cant recall which event but he was soundly beaten. But it was on clay.

cam is also 0-1 v Stan, albeit from 2018.

id go with Andy and Jack this time, wear Stan out and then expect Dan and Neal to take the doubles.

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

Much as I preferred the old home and away format, generally, it wasnt perfect (home team bias in results, with surface choice etc) but it was fun.

However, I do like this week compared to the run of the mill week in week out tour events, and it is at least meaningful (ie it is still the World Cup of tennis) compared to the meaningless Hopman Cup in June and the United Cup as well, and the old ATP Cup.

I guess we will never go back to what it was, unless they lose this stage for one off home and away matches and retain a finals week at year end as some sort of future compromise.

The first finals in Madrid a couple of years back had some real bite about them, despite the crowd issues when Spain werent playing , and despite the silly finishing times at 3 am and the like. Malaga as a venue doesnt feel like it will provide much atmosphere for the finals, and if Spain dont get there (and they started this week with a loss so are in danger of falling) that will not be good for the event or the crowds .

JonH comes home · Tennis legend

The Aussies have replaced Kokkinakis with Purcell today and so the OOP is

Purcell v Mannarino
AdM v Humbert
Purcell and Ebden v Mahut and ERV

Got to think this could well be down to the doubles. I guess for Britain, a French win would suit us best in terms of reaching the top 2?

Smudge226 · Strong Club Player

I'm not surprised Kokkinakis has been dropped after yesterday although it might be as much about match ups but he should have brought home the bacon.

Evans was knackered in that second set of dubs, I think back to back games yesterday especially against the world no.12 was too demanding for him to give his best in the dubs.

Personally I'd go with Draper and Norrie leaving Evans for dubs but probably on balance Evans is our best singles player here right now, I'm torn.. Evans in this form would beat the current 38yo Wawrinka I'm thinking. Evans was outstanding for GB in the singles yesterday, absolutely brilliant. Smith could even go with Evans and Norrie, at least then Evans gets almost 3 hours rest before dubs.

I'm starting to agree with Murray, Salisbury should be available and given more time, even if only in bit part with Evans and Skupski first choice unless singles dictates. It really is a tricky decision this for Smith. Why bring Murray if he doesn't play at all with Salisbury available, if he doesn't even play dubs..

Smudge226 · Strong Club Player

The dubs is now often the decider, under the old DC format it rarely was.. Certainly something the organisers need to consider.

indiana · Tennis legend

And the doubles is going to decide the France vs Australia tie since it's 1-1 after the singles.

We could do with France winning that so that a win for GB vs Switzerland would see both us and France through without possible further complications like say 3 teams ending on 2 ties won and 1 lost ( in which case the first tiebreaker would be overall number of matches won, and we only won 2-1 yesterday ).

It's Mahut & Roger-V vs Ebden & Purcell

-- Edited by indiana on Thursday 14th of September 2023 04:44:18 PM

indiana · Tennis legend

JonH comes home wrote:
Much as I preferred the old home and away format, generally, it wasnt perfect (home team bias in results, with surface choice etc) but it was fun.

However, I do like this week compared to the run of the mill week in week out tour events, and it is at least meaningful (ie it is still the World Cup of tennis) compared to the meaningless Hopman Cup in June and the United Cup as well, and the old ATP Cup.

I guess we will never go back to what it was, unless they lose this stage for one off home and away matches and retain a finals week at year end as some sort of future compromise.

The first finals in Madrid a couple of years back had some real bite about them, despite the crowd issues when Spain werent playing , and despite the silly finishing times at 3 am and the like. Malaga as a venue doesnt feel like it will provide much atmosphere for the finals, and if Spain dont get there (and they started this week with a loss so are in danger of falling) that will not be good for the event or the crowds .

And whyever not at least have 8 atmospheric home and away ties ( 4 singles, 1 doubles ) in this week rather than these 4 groups nonsense ??