JonH comes home wrote:

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Smudge226 wrote:

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Despite Argentina's high ranked singles, they are all dirt ballers and have barely much history for indoor hard for all three.. Their percentages for indoor hard are not very convincing at all and even outdoor hard, parity or less, whilst they do all have high percentages on the clay and hence the rankings. I'm thinking this will play into GB's court nicely since the surface in Manchester was described as slightly quicker and with a low bounce. One of the Argies is actually quite short from memory.

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 I think your thinking Schwartzman, but he isnt playing anymore, or is nearly retired ! 

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 Baez 1.7m according my search but more importantly all of them, Etchevery and Cerundolo also have distinctly average hard court numbers. Their accomplishments are on the dirt.

Smudge226 wrote:

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JonH comes home wrote:

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My instinct is theyll play etchevery tomorrow; Billy has a win over him at Queens, and I hope we pick Billy. I think theyll put Cerundolo against Jack, Baez would get crunched by Jack here and Jack has two comfortable wins over him, one hard court, once on clay.

I dont know much but that is my expected order of play

Billy versus Etchevery
Jack versus Cerundolo
Gonzalez and Molteni versus Neal and Dan ( dont expect Leon to pick Henry, rightly or wrongly).

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 That order of play would do very nicely, just got my tickets.

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 Enjoy - send us a report! 

At the risk of having a very very unpopular opinion I just don't get it. Harris was considerably better than Evo was on Wednesday and faced a tougher opponent. I love Evo, have always liked him because he digs deep in every match and I know he has so much fight during the Davis cup in particular but how far does that get you. I don't see how Harris has been dropped here..

As mentioned, I'm biased in the doubles so take it with a pinch of salt but is he not the GB number 40 or something at the moment? Despite the success he had with Skupski, with the Louis Cayer system, players really should be able to play very well together regardless of if they've played much or not so I don't see it as much of an excuse to play Evo there either. Thought he was really poor against Finland, and I dont think the blame sits with the crowd.. He's won 4 doubles matches the entirety of the year (2 with Henry and 2 with Andy).

I hope he proves me wrong because he's a legend and a hero and I'll happily eat my words if he wins his matches but it doesn't sit right with me, especially if we want to be competitive.

Stircrazy wrote:

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Stircrazy wrote:

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Stircrazy wrote:

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Match 2:  Otto Virtanen (FIN) WR 110 (CH = 109 in April) vs Billy Harris WR 101 (= CH)

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First set in the bag for Billy by 6-4.  If he can but hold on, there'll be no need for Dan to take to the court again in the doubles...   

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Can he do it? YES, HE CAN - despite a little hiccup when he lost the break he'd earned half-way through the second set! 

Match 2:  Billy Harris WR 101 defeated Otto Virtanen (FIN) WR 110 by 6-4 7-6(4)

GB wins the tie by 2-0 (*).  Well done, Billy, the DC debutant. 

(*) with the doubles still to come

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John Westerby's report on the tie from yesterday's Times.  Includes a bit of a trip down memory lane, as Dan surpassed the total number of DC matches played by Andy with his appearance on Wednesday. 

Colin Fleming's analysis of the first set, which Dan lost by 2-6:

Well, what a brilliant set of tennis. A real battle early on, the first four games, in fact the fourth game was pivotal. Etcheverry, 65% of first serves gone in, he's won 79%, it's no surprise, it's huge serving. His second last serve of the set was 142mph/h, his second ace.

And the comments of Philip Studd, whom the Beeb describes as the Davis Cup commentator:

Cries of' 'let's go Evo' reverberating around the Manchester Arena. Tomas Martin Etcheverry showing in that opening set that he's going nowhere.

He could have folded in the face of the relentless pressure being applied in that pivotal fourth game, but he saved the four break points and from that moment on, he took control.