Davis Cup 2008 News, Davis Cup 2008

French spirits sky high

For the second straight year, the France Davis Cup team led by captain Guy Forget dominated Romania in its opening tie. And for the second consecutive year, it will travel to face the defending champion in the quarterfinals.

In 2007 it was Russia, which proved too good for Forget’s boys. This year, they will travel to USA with higher hopes to continue the adventure.
Succesful Start for Tsonga

Australian Open Finalist and no-doubt a new sensation Jo-Wilfried Tsonga has given it a new dimension, and hopes of a campaign which could prove glorious. Ten days after his final at the Australian Open, Tsonga made a successful career debut inDavis Cup , defeating Andrei Pavel in a thrilling four setter. “Jo has lived up to the occasion. He displayed some dominating tennis, while remaining serene and in control ” said Forget.

Davis Cup 2008 News, Davis Cup Results, Davis Cup Updates

USA cruise into quarterfinals

Title holders USA secured themselves a spot in the quarterfinals of the Davis Cup by BNP Paribas, ousting first round hosts Austria 4-1 in Vienna.

Andy Roddick and James Blake gave Patrick McEnroe’s team a 2-0 lead before the Bryan brothers won the doubles to lift the outfit to an untouchable 3-0 advantage. In the dead rubbers, Bob Bryan celebrated a surprising singles victory, while his brother Mike Bryan had to retire with a hamstring injury.

Austrian hopes were high ahead of the tie and memories of the close 2-3 battle between the country’s tennis heroes Thomas Muster, Horst Skoff and Alex Antonitsch against Andre Agassi and his Likes from 1990 were fresh. Rolling out the red carpet, the hosts had a very slow clay court laid out and sold 6,500 tickets at low prices to create the perfect Davis Cup home atmosphere.

Davis Cup 2008 News Update, Davis Cup 2008 Results

New Zealand Beats Oman in Davis Cup

Davis Cup 2008
February 11:

New Zealand has completed a 5-0 win over Oman in their Davis Cup tennis tie in Muscat.

Dan King-Turner won the first of the reverse singles matches 6-love 6-1 before GD Jones completed the rout with a 6-1, 7-5 win over his opponent.

The New Zealanders return to the Middle East in April to take on Kuwait looking to get to the Asia Oceania zone group two promotion match in September.

In the World Group, Cup holders the USA are through to the quarter finals beating Austria 4-1, joining Germany, Russia, Sweden, the Czech Republic, Spain, France and Argentina in the last eight.

Davis Cup 2008 Group Draw

Davis Cup 2008 Group Draw

 Russia         v Serbia

 Czech Republic v Belgium

 Argentina      v Britain

 Israel         v Sweden

 Germany        v South Korea

 Peru           v Spain

 Romania        v France

 Austria        v U.S.

Ties to be played on 8 to 10 February 2008

Davis Cup 2008 Updates, Davis Cup Results Updates

Davis Cup 2008
Nominations for World Group Quarterfinal Ties

The ITF has announced the official nominations for the four World Group quarterfinal ties on 6-8 April, and these can be found below.

Live scoring for all World Group ties will be available on the Davis Cup website throughout the weekend of 6-8 April, along with the usual array of reports, photos, and interviews. There will also be reports from the draw for each tie on 5 April.

As action unfolds around the world, you will also be able to access a radio-style update through Davis Cup Radio, the official audio service of the competition, rounding up all the Davis Cup news and results. There will be reaction from players as well as expert analysis from the Tennis Radio Network, who will be providing the daily show.

RUSSIA v FRANCE
Venue: Moscow, Russia (clay – indoors)

RUSSIA
Igor Andreev
Nikolay Davydenko
Marat Safin
Mikhail Youzhny
Captain: Shamil Tarpischev

FRANCE
Sebastien Grosjean (replaces Arnaud Clement)
Richard Gasquet
Michael Llodra
Paul-Henri Mathieu
Captain: Guy Forget

BELGIUM v GERMANY
Venue: Ostend, Belgium (clay-indoors)

BELGIUM
Dick Norman
Christophe Rochus
Olivier Rochus
Kristof Vliegen
Captain: Julian Hoferlin

GERMANY
Tommy Haas
Michael Kohlmann
Philipp Kohlschreiber (replaces Florian Mayer)
Alexander Waske
Captain: Patrik Kuhnen

USA v SPAIN
Venue: Winston-Salem, NC, USA (hard – indoors)

USA
Andy Roddick
James Blake
Mike Bryan
Bob Bryan
Captain: Patrick Mc Enroe

SPAIN
David Ferrer
Feliciano Lopez
Tommy Robredo
Fernando Verdasco
Captain: Emilio Sanchez

SWEDEN v ARGENTINA
Venue: Gothenburg, Sweden (carpet – indoors)

SWEDEN
Jonas Bjorkman
Thomas Johansson
Robert Linstedt
Robin Soderling
Captain: Mats Wilander

ARGENTINA
Guillermo Canas
Juan Martin Del Potro
David Nalbandian
Sebastian Prieto
Captain: Alberto Mancini

Davis Cup 2008 Update, Davis Cup News, Davis Cup 2008

Russia Beat Serbia
Davis Cup 2008

Russia’s 3-2 victory over Serbia was almost as much about the relationship between appearance and illusion as it was about tennis. What should have been a celebration of Novak Djokovic’s first event since winning the Australian Open became a tactical battle for Serbia to get enough players ready for the relevant matches, and part of that battle was an attempt to control information to the point where no-one really knew who was ill or injured, and by how much. What also emerged by the end of the weekend was that the Russian team also had its own health issues.

Modern sport is based around players being in peak fitness, and tennis is no exception. But peak fitness so often means pushing the body beyond the limits “normally fit” people stick within, and that’s when super-fit bodies can rebel. When that happens, some of the most eagerly awaited sporting moments can be spoiled. Who knows why – a few days after being feted a hero for breaking the Federer-Nadal Grand Slam stranglehold – Djokovic’s body decided to call a time-out? Maybe it was a psychological come-down after his heroics in Melbourne, or he picked up a germ in a plane, or the fact that he spent over two hours being acclaimed outdoors on a cold Belgrade day while wearing just a T-shirt? It probably depends on where you believe illness comes from. But what was clear was that he arrived in Moscow for Serbia’s first-ever Davis Cup by BNP Paribas world group tie with flu-like symptoms, which prevented him from practising on the Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday leading up to the tie. Add to that the leg injury picked up in Moscow by Serbia’s No 2 Janko Tipsarevic, whose previous match was taking Roger Federer to a 10-8 fifth set, and fate was being particularly unkind to the newcomers.

They still nominated Djokovic for the first day, and Tipsarevic kept people guessing by saying he had a stomach bug rather than an injury (the illness can clear in a couple of days, the injury would take three weeks), but it was all part of using information as a weapon in the war. In the end, Serbia had to go into the opening day’s singles with a 31-year-old doubles specialist ranked 689 in singles who had been running a temperature the previous day and a 21-year-old playing his first Davis Cup rubber – this against two players in the world’s top 10. The fact that Serbia went to bed on Friday night having won three sets when none would have been no embarrassment testifies to the nation’s fighting spirit. But then the underlying story behind this weekend is that you underestimate Serbia at your peril.

Russia also affected by fitness issues

By Saturday, Russia’s captain Shamil Tarpischev must have been rueing his decision to let Igor Andreev miss the tie because of tournament commitments in America. Marat Safin – Russia’s most versatile player whose absence from the 2007 final was such a loss to his country’s chances of defending its 2006 title – was already carrying a foot injury but woke up on Saturday with a temperature, and couldn’t play. The Safin-Tursunov pairing, Tarpischev’s original nomination after they played so well in the 2006 final against Argentina’s Calleri and Nalbandian, was replaced by Tursunov-Youzhny, who had lost their previous three rubbers. But the real interest in the doubles was whether Djokovic would last in his first match since winning in Australia.

He did. Helped by the world class Zimonjic who was still under the weather, the Serbs were simply the better doubles team, and the fact that they won in straight sets limited Djokovic’s time on court and gave the visitors hope that their star could be fit for the final day.

He was out there against Nikolay Davydenko, even if not fully fit. He later admitted to feeling dizzy from the start, but you’d never have known it as he took the first set of the fourth rubber, a match pitting the third and fourth best players in the world against each other. Leading 2-1 in the second, Djokovic played two sublime games that showed why he was a Grand Slam champion, and when he led 3-0 in the third set with a double break, the gamble of playing him appeared to have paid off. But he knew all along he probably only had enough steam for three sets, and when Davydenko began playing more conservatively and making Djokovic run more, it turned the tide Russia’s way. The longer rallies soaked up the Serb’s dwindling energy, he was able to be less aggressive and to dictate less, and when Davydenko hit a backhand down the line to seal his third break and take the third set 6-4, Djokovic threw in the towel.

“I had to stop to avoid a risk to my health,” was Djokovic’s explanation of his shock-but-not-shock walkout. How risky it would have been to carry on, no-one knows. There may be some who have been in war situations or multi-day treks through rough terrain who would say the human body can take much more than three sets of tennis, even when recovering from a flu-like bug. But it would be very harsh to accuse a still 20-year-old sportsman of not having that degree of knowledge about his body, especially when, having lost the third set, he felt he had nothing to gain and much to lose by going on.

The fact that Serbia can come away from Moscow having lost 3-2 with only one fully fit player (Troicki, who earned himself a 22nd birthday present by winning the dead rubber) is a fact the tennis world should note. True, Russia had its own problems – as well as Safin’s illness and injury, Tarpischev admitted that Davydenko had an abdominal strain and Youzhny wasn’t 100 per cent fit, though as that was in answer to the question “Do Serbia’s injuries devalue Russia’s win” it’s fair to wonder whether there may have been a little exaggeration for the sake of team pride. But the sense at the end of the weekend was that Serbia will be back, and stronger. In fact Tarpischev suggested that, with a more favourable draw, the young nation might even have gone all the way in the 2008 Davis Cup by BNP Paribas.

The future looks bright for the Balkan nation, even if it’s Russia who will be welcoming the Czechs in Moscow in April’s quarterfinals.