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110K views 2K replies 74 participants last post by  Brad1973 
#1 ·
I thought it might be useful to start a thread for Davis Cup discussions.

Next up is Ecuador, July 8-10.

So who do we send? (I am asking who we would send, not who Laurendeau will pick since many of his recent choices have been inscrutable, to put it politely).

Ecuador of course has long been looking forward to el bombardero: see http://www.diario-expreso.com/ediciones/2011/03/29/deportes/mas-deportes/el-bombardero-raonic/ (I like the fact that this piece suggests Raonic is the main reason for choosing clay – as if a Latin American country ever picked anything but clay against our guys!)

Apart from Raonic, Nestor is there of course, unless he is not available.

I don’t see any signs of players getting themselves ready for the clay (Pospisil, Polansky and Bester are all signed up for hard court challengers in the weeks of Wimbledon). And for the week of DC, Dancevic is signed up for Newport, where he has a QF to defend.

But really when you look at the players Ecuador has to choose from, you can understand that we wouldn’t be taking extreme measures to get ready: http://www.atpworldtour.com/Rankings/Singles.aspx?d=06.06.2011&c=ECU&r=0#. The remaining Lapentti is the only guy they have in the top 350, and he seems to be having problems – recently he’s been retiring from a match almost as often as he completes one.

I would encourage Dancevic to play Newport, and go with Nestor and Pospisil in doubles and bring along Polansky, with a view to playing either Peter or Vasek in the singles.
 
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#807 ·
 
#812 ·
Good 1st day, couldn't really ask for better barring Vasek upsetting Nole which was totally unrealistic. Vasek lost quickly and shouldn't be tired for tomorrow and Sunday, while Milos won yet took Tipsy past 4 hours in hopes of him being tired Sunday. Couldn't really work out much better

:yeah:
 
#817 ·
Definitely Pospisil should go. He looks to be in great shape and will be full of a adrenaline; he's a little less able on clay but so is Frank, and Tipsy will be a bit low on stamina given his five sets Friday so it's about even on that count. Frank in part had his great win over Granollers because there wasn't expectation on him, he had nothing to lose, and so played loose; he has a history of tightening up, choking when there is expectations on him. Vasek can tighten too but seems to have a few more where he came through under the pressure of expectation; Israel for one for sure.
 
#821 ·
Well, I'd say calling "Milos beating Novak in Belgrade would be the upset of the decade" might be a bit of an exaggeration (just confining our sample size to Wimbledon matches in last 2 years, I'd say Rosol, Darcis, & Stakhovsky would have something to say about that) :)

- but, yah I agree that likelihood is pretty small. Hope Raonic's ankle is ok so we can at least get a good gauge on his level right now (so much improved only in last 2 months).

On the other hand, my view of Vasek's shot at Tipsy has unfortunately gone down in last 2 months ... sure Vasek is playing better & because of Montreal is a top-40 player ... but Tipsy was playing like about a top-100 player at best for most of the year ... now he's back to playing like he should (still don't think he's a real top-10 guy, but definitely a top-20 guy). So this one is unlikely too.

Ah well, as has been said, this is exactly as good as we could have hoped. No matter the odds, I'll be cheering & hoping for a continuing miracle.
 
#820 ·
Well any chance we had given that Novak played, came down to an unbelievable upset over the World #1 or winning the doubles and beating Serbia's number #2 twice.

Everything has gone according to plan.

We're in a live tie needing one point to win going into the Sunday of the Davis Cup semi-final, 1 of 3 teams still alive. Still the underdog but we have a chance.
 
#822 ·
not to get too much ahead of ourselves but

I've just heard on the Davis Cup podcast that Canada have won the coin toss.

THEY WILL HOST THE FINAL, if they win tomorrow.

They would be insane.
 
#823 ·
Awesome result today. Don't have SN1 so was following a stream for the 1st 4 sets, and left to go golfing(scheduled when I assumed the match would be over, stupid me), was following the scores from my phone, saw the break on the 3rd tee, and they won just as I finished the hole, at that point I couldn't careless how I golfed, I was on cloud 9.

Tomorrow is my birthday, couldn't script a better birthday present than Milos beating Nole in Belgrade on clay to advanmce to the Davis Cup final, or even Vasek winning a crucial 5th rubber.

Even if we lose we've proved we're a force to be reckoned with, nobody was really giving us much of a chance coming in, we had to win the doubles and beat Tipsy twice, so far this is going according to plan, and Serbia is likely a lot more scared now than they were coming in. It's never fun being forced to win both the final 2 days no matter how big of a favorite you are
 
#824 ·
Not bad draw .. we get Japan away ... so the team can just make short hop from Australia & not worry about jet lag .. say if Milos goes really deep for once :) ... and most important thing we don't have to do a clay tie in the middle of HC season

Not sure if we win this and play Czechs who gets home advantage. That should be a good match .. but certainly winnable.

And REALLY getting ahead of ourselves, if things we do really well, it is probably Spain in Semis ... on clay ... so out at same point as last year.
 
#830 ·
Not bad draw .. we get Japan away ... so the team can just make short hop from Australia & not worry about jet lag .. say if Milos goes really deep for once :) ... and most important thing we don't have to do a clay tie in the middle of HC season

Not sure if we win this and play Czechs who gets home advantage. That should be a good match .. but certainly winnable.

And REALLY getting ahead of ourselves, if things we do really well, it is probably Spain in Semis ... on clay ... so out at same point as last year.
It's not that short a hop from Melbourne to Tokyo, actually. A direct flight from Tullamarine airport to Tokyo Haneda airport is about 11 hours. You can use this flight calculator to see it. http://www.prokerala.com/travel/flight-time/
 
#825 ·
Japan would have to put the tie indoors, which favours Canada. Also Japan doesn't have much of a doubles team, so Canada should be able to pull through.

Didn't they used to pick the "choice of ground if decided by lot" for all the rounds as soon as the draw is first made? It seems like they stopped doing that. At any rate, Spain will probably want to put in a big effort after a disappointing 2013 campaign, so I agree that a run to the finals is unlikely.
 
#827 ·
yeah I thought that they had that up shortly after the draw last year as well, maybe they're just late in releasing it. The chart they do have on their website has 'BY LOT" in all the ties that havn't been contested before including Japan and Canada(which we know has been drawn and is in Japan), maybe they'll release a new chart with all the possibilities in shortly like they've done before. I'm eager to find out where a potential Canada/Czech round 2 would be.
 
#828 ·
maji de? Against Japan? Awesome. Hoping to find a way to afford to go; miss Japan (lived there for 11 years - too bad that one team has to lose in round one).

Nishikori of late is certainly beatable and Soeda (T. Ito or Sugita) can't compete with either of our big two. Most notably, as noted, they don't have a proper DC doubles team - Ito and Sugita lost sth like one, two and two against the Colombian pair on the weekend.
 
#835 ·
Well, we won the important lot (#2) and lost the 3rd (semis) .. which is almost certainly irrelevant anyways ... if we do get that far, huge odds we'd have to play spain or france ... and both would be their turn for home advantage. So, unfortunately, even IF we make the semis next year, looks like a really tough task again with the unfortunate circumstances for our Canadian guys having to play on clay between USO & Asian HC season. Not sure how to fix this, but one of the things about DC that irritates me is this forcing players to change surfaces so quickly (and back again) - and for eg, both Roanic & Vasek suffered ankle injuries - not sure how much blame can be laid on surface change (or maybe crappy Serbia courts?). R2 isn't a problem because it is a natural transition from HC->clay. But R1 and R3 are killers when you need to play on clay.
 
#836 ·
Would be interesting if a player the stature of Djokovic or Murray, who we applaud for playing DC, gets injured because of a suddenly different or poor quality surface. It's too bad there couldn't be two or three weeks set aside for a tennis world cup of sorts, played every two or three years maybe, or even every four years, two years away from Olympics. Then again, DC does seem to have decent momentum in its current format, or maybe it just seems that way here in Canada.
 
#837 ·
I'm in favour of the status quo; I love the current format. I like the months of anticipation between ties, the best of five match ties and the best of five set matches. Since the calendar is so crowded, I would be in favour of giving the two finalists a bye for the first round of the following year. Playing two or three matches two or three times a year is not such a big commitment. The real problem with the current calendar is that Indian Wells and Miami are given two much importance. I wouldn't make Davis Cup any smaller than it already is.
 
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