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Davis Cup

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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#1,618 ·
Can't complain about Denis' performance, he played a great match against a legend of the game and came up a little short. FAA obviously less so.

I wish Vasek would have had the opportunity to play today because while I'm sure Canada will be back in the same or similar spot, he'll likely never be playing singles again for this team in this environment.
 
#1,620 ·
When asked about his decision to replace Pospisil with Auger-Aliassime in the match-up of the respective teams’ No. 2 players, captain Frank Dancevic simply replied, “it was my decision, obviously to make the substitution. I’d rather not go into details with it. It was my call in the end to do the substitution today and I’ll leave it at that.”
As for Pospisil, he said, “I found out late last (Saturday) night. Of course it’s tough – everyone wants to play. It was double tough that we lost it today. At the end of the day we have a full team capable of playing high-level tennis. It’s a team effort, it’s a team decision so to speak, and you just have to be ready to do your part.”
http://www.tenniscanada.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/DS-running-right.jpeg
 
#1,626 ·
Canada next plays the Netherlands (van de Zandschulp (57), Griekspoor (65)) in the Netherlands in March. As the scheduling is not inconvenient for the Dutch, Canada will have to send two of its best.

Canada holds a 3-1 head to head advantage against the Netherlands. I can remember their 1990 encounter, when Grant Connell won three live matches in staight sets to send Canada into the world group. Such heroics are easier in a best of three sets format.
 
#1,628 ·
Alexis Galarneau will make his DC debut tomorrow on clay against Botic Van De Zandschulp. Will be a tough match as Botic beat Hurkacz on clay last year. Not sure I will get up for it to be honest. Diez plays Griekspoor after. Another tough match. They played last year and Diez lost in 3, but Diez has not been very good on clay now for a few years.
 
#1,629 ·
Van de Zandschulp helped out Galarneau quite a lot in the first set, but Alexis couldn't quite get it done. Nice to see him on TV for the first time. He reminds me of Martin Wostenholm.

Here's a pet peeve: when the score is advantage, Rogers Sports Net shows 40-40 with the word Advantage at the bottom, with no indication of whose advantage it is.

Canada will need some serious heroics to win this tie.
 
#1,630 ·
Van de Zandschulp helped out Galarneau quite a lot in the first set, but Alexis couldn't quite get it done. Nice to see him on TV for the first time. He reminds me of Martin Wostenholm.

Here's a pet peeve: when the score is advantage, Rogers Sports Net shows 40-40 with the word Advantage at the bottom, with no indication of whose advantage it is.

Canada will need some serious heroics to win this tie.
I saw that regarding advantage, I only saw the first 4 games of that match due to work so I thought I missed something. Really strange. Well the scorelines look fine, but as expected, two losses looking likely.
 
#1,633 ·
Canada is in a group with Serbia, Spain and South Korea, with the top two teams advancing to the quarterfinals. Serbia has Djokovic, Kecmanovic (38) and Krajinovic (49). Spain has Nadal, Alcaraz (9) and Bautista Agut (19) and Carreno Busta (18). South Korea has Kwon (71) and Chung (374). Canada will need two in-form players in order to finish in the top two.
 
#1,634 · (Edited)
Team nominations are out. Neither Auger-Alliassime nor Shapovalov will play for Canada. I guess they didn't want to make the trip to Europe right after the US Open. And maybe they weren't motivated to play Davis Cup after having won ATP Cup earlier this year. Personally I was hoping for an ATP Cup - Davis Cup double. Canada will be represented by Pospisil and recent Winnepeg finalist Galarneau.

Nadal isn't playing, so Spain will have to make do with Alcaraz, Montreal champ Carreno-Busta and Bautista-Agut. Serbia is sending Djokovic and Kecmanovic. The other team in Canada's group is South Korea, with Kwon (81) and Hong (482). It's tough to imagine a scenario in which Canada - or South Korea - for that matter, could finish in the top two.
 
#1,636 ·
Canada d. South Korea 2-1
Underwhelming result against a lower ranked team. Canada lost four sets in the process. Pospisil started the day almost losing to a player ranked 467. In the end, they won on his two wins. Canada will rest for two days and go in as the underdogs against Spain and Serbia.
 
#1,638 ·
Pospisil took a set off Bautista-Agut in a losing effort. Auger-Alliassime leveled the tie with a great win over Alcaraz.

If Spain beats Canada, Canada needs to beat Serbia to qualify.
If Canada beats Spain, Canada needs to either win a match against Serbia or hope that South Korea beats Spain.
 
#1,639 ·
Davis Cup: Vasek and Felix come back from 3-5 in the third to beat Granollers and Martinez 4-6, 6-4, 7-5 to win their tie against Spain. Canada was three for three on break points. Pospisil really turned it on in the end.

Canada is now 2-0, but is still not qualified. They need at least one match against Serbia or they need South Korea to beat Spain. Maybe they will have Vasek sit out the singles and focus on doubles?
 
#1,644 ·
I think they were right to give Posp a rest for the doubles. He wasn't beating Djere anyway.
What's incredible about the Canadian team--and this was true when it was denis and Vasek--is it's two guys doing it all! In all the other teams I've seen so far, different guys are playing singles/doubles.

What a shame Shap isn't here. He lifts his level for DC and atp cup.

Well if they get through this then hopefully he plays in Nov and suddenly we have an amazing team.
 
#1,646 ·
After an unimpressive debut from Diallo, Felix gets the job done against Kecmanovic and sends Canada to the final stage. Shapovalov will want to join the party. Spain will want to avoid elimination in front of their fans by beating South Korea tomorrow. The final stage is also in Spain, so Alcaraz and friends will be especially keen to redeem themselves after losing to Canada. Maybe Nadal will join them, forming an intergenerational superteam. Other teams making the final: USA, the Netherlands, Germany, Australia. I haven't worked out the other group, but it looks like Argentina is virtually eliminated and two of Italy, Sweden and Croatia will advance.
 
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