Country Cups (Davis Cup, Fed/BJK Cup)

[ti-amie]

[ti-amie]

[ponchi101]

Sorry. The Davis Cup is NOT the World Cp of tennis. The whole point was that it was a distinctive competition, with a lot more history than the WC.
I guess that is what happens when you ruin a great event. I don't see, for example, Wimbledon ever calling itself THE MASTERS OF TENNIS, in reference to the golf competition.

[ashkor87]

In retrospect, Ferrer erred in playing Nadal in singles .should have saved him for doubles ..

[ashkor87]

to me, the story of these Cups is the story of mistakes/failures of captaincy:
1. Davenport - could not get her best players to play - Keys, Kenin, Anisimova , Krawczyk and Dolehide in doubles - none of them was fielded. Keys is her mentee!
2. Ferrer- should have fielded Nadal in doubles only - he is not good enough in singles any more but can still win doubles
3. Bryan - the less said the better
4. The Czech BJK captain - couldnt get Muchova to play? Why? she had not played Riyadh..

[skatingfan]

Muchova is injured - Keys got married this weekend, so was probably busy with finishing the planning - Nadal wanted to play singles to finish his career, and that was more important than winning - Bryan used the same strategy as the Italians, and it didn't work - no guarantee that the doubles specialists would have won either.

[nelslus]

Muchova is injured - Keys got married this weekend, so was probably busy with finishing the planning - Nadal wanted to play singles to finish his career, and that was more important than winning - Bryan used the same strategy as the Italians, and it didn't work - no guarantee that the doubles specialists would have won either.

Sure. OK. Except for that silver medal (which, one could very much argue, was helped by at least some of the Olympics doubles teams being inexperienced playing together), Rajeev and Krajicek have been a hot-mess team this year, and they have both played pretty weakly for at least all of this year with other partners.

However.....you are the Davis Cup coach who, allegedly has some experience with doubles. You have one multi-Slam doubles winner playing with a one Slam doubles winner, who also has a Slam doubles SF result and mixed Slam doubles final result. Both have been ranked #1 in the world in doubles. Instead, you play....Tommy Freakin' Paul and Ben I Got Love for the Guy but COME ON Shelton (albeit, HEY, at least Ben made the SF at the US Open with Townsend last year). Why at least not play Paul and Fritz- who at LEAST!!!! won a bronze medal together at the Olympics last year....Why didn't you play Tommy Paul in singles, instead of, if I am recalling this correctly, Ben, who was a newbie at Davis Cup....

Team Italy did take an arguably big risk playing Sinner in the doubles against Argentina in their QF....except, Sinner is now a proven big-time champion, and Berrettini ain't no slouch when it comes to big matches. AND, they played against a doubles team nowhere near the current level of Thompson/Ebden. Who killed Ben and Tommy- which I knew would happen, as any reasonable tennis fan should have known.

I mean, for all I know, hey, maybe Ben was looking like the GOAT in front of Bob in Davis Cup practice for all I know. But, practice matches mean NOTHING. Maybe Tommy is aching, maybe Fritz would not play doubles....

Odds are, the US was gonna lose. Nevertheless- if you are Davis Cup coach- you should know the game enough to play your Best Chances players. Mardy Fish clearly did not get it. But, GOAT doubles champion candidate Bob Freakin' Bryan when picking the doubles team....Not to mention how bad it looks to keep shafting Rajeev Ram, over and over again. IMO, it looks like Bob coached on the level of Mardy- except you would hope HE knew to trust doubles champions....

[ti-amie]

[skatingfan]

This event seems very late this year.

[ashkor87]

Sinner had won it a couple years ago..so .