Davis Cup 2022 without Russia: Team Canada last year’s success of our tennis players, grid, results, video
For the fourth year, the famous men’s team tennis tournament – the Davis Cup – was played in an updated format. From the very beginning of the “resumption” of this competition in 2019, there were words that the tournament offers its uniqueness for the sake of commercial interests. During this time, criticism has diminished, but questions remain.
Where previously matches of all rounds were played under an alternating host-away designation, this now generally only applies to the minor leagues, as well as qualifying before the final round. The elite, on the other hand, correspond to coincidences in their homes and their fans, on neutral sites in predetermined countries and cities. In addition, the match in the old Davis Cup format occurred from five hits – two singles, then a doubles and two more singles. Moreover, the paired frequent combination matters in the entire key match and can even turn the course of the confrontation with the other side. Now in the new standard, two options for a single skater are often chosen. In this case, it does not reach the pair – 2:0 and the end of the match. Even when there are highly developed doubles players in the game who are ranked higher, they don’t always make their own contributions to the team or help save the day.
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Of course, the current Davis Cup matches were very dynamic than before, when the team was stretched over three days. However, not everyone in the tennis world is happy about this. The head of the French Tennis Federation, Gilles Moretton, in an interview with L’Equipe, criticized the International Tennis Federation (ITF) for not sufficiently controlling such team tournaments as the Davis Cup and the Billie Jean King Cup: “When choosing the Davis Cup format, we do not recommend athletes with using it, since there is no density in ITF. We have little information about the contract with the company that acquired the rights to host the Davis Cup, and on the terms under which we could terminate it. The situation with the Davis Cup and the Billie Jean King Cup can’t exactly be called outstanding. The main mission of the ITF is to popularize and develop tennis around the world. The Davis Cup Connector was for this search. But we succumbed to the lure of money.”
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To all the controversial decisions on the format of the Davis Cup, including its final part, this year there was also a suspension from the conquest of last year’s champion – the Russian team. According to the regulations, as the winners of the last draw, our tennis players had to immediately get into the group stage of the 2022 tournament, which took place in September in four countries. However, the decision of Russia on the ITF was out of all team competitions, both in men’s and women’s tennis. This, of course, is a blow to the spectacle of the tournament and its prestige. It is one thing to become a new victor, a champion in wrestling, and another thing to become an observer, in which there is no main favorite.
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Andrey Olkhovsky, the champion of two Grand Slam tournaments in the mixed doubles, commented on the absence of the superiority of the Russian champions in the current draw: “The competition, the Davis Cup with the participation of the Russian team, would be more interesting from a sports point of view, there can be no other opinion. We have two players in the world top 10 who play in the ATP Tournament Finals and we are the reigning Davis Cup winners. I do not think that there will be talk about the inferiority of victory in this tournament, occupied by the Davis Cup – it is always prestigious. After some time, this will be forgotten, and the result and the score on the scoreboard will disappear forever, ”Olkhovsky said in an interview with TASS.
In the absence of last year’s champion of the Russian national team, according to the results of the September group stage, eight teams became the best in the playoffs – Spain, Italy, Germany, Croatia, the USA, Canada, Australia and the Netherlands, which played the 2022 title in Malaga. revealing that not all tennis stars chose their teams in the group and final event. For example, the absence of Djokovic affected the fact that Serbia did not get into the final eight. But Spain is experimenting in the November playoffs without Nadal. Be that as it may, the first issue of the first world arrest of Carlos Alcaras was published for the Spaniards. As for the final part in Malaga, only two tennis players made it out of the top 10 – the Canadian Felix Auger-Aliassime (the sixth racket of the world) and the American right Fritz (9).
Quarter-final pairs looked like this: Italy – USA, Germany – Canada, Australia – the Netherlands and Croatia – Spain. In two matches, it turned out that the matter did not come to the steam room. The Australians, led by Captain Lleyton Hewitt, single-handedly dealt with the Dutch – Jordan Thompson defeated Tallon Grikspor, and Alex de Minor – Botik van de Zandshulp. The Croatians did not let the first champion of the draw in the new format (2019) and the hosts of the tournament, the Spaniards, into the semifinals. Borna Coric defeated Roberto Bautista-Agut in two sets, and Marin Cilic won a strong-willed victory over Pablo Carreno-Busta. Moreover, during the first time of detention, eco-activists ran out onto the court. The man and woman, who later found themselves chained to the net, even lay down on the court to make it harder to get them into the stadium. But the guards eventually got the job done.
The Canadians only partially captured territory with the German national team chain. The decisive point was brought by Vashek Pospisil and Denis Shapovalov, who, unexpectedly for many, defeated one of the best couples in the world – Kevin Kravitz / Tim Puetz. Another championship match with a scandal. Before the meeting between American Francis Tiafoe and Italian Lorenzo Sonego, the American did not take off his headphones during the anthem. Roland Garros champion – 1976 Adriano Panatta harshly criticized Francis’s behavior: “This is unacceptable behavior. If I were the captain of this team, I would kick Tiafoe from the national team for such obscene actions. In this match, after two singles, the score was average – 1:1, and everything was decided in doubles concentration. Here, unexpectedly, captain Murdy Fish discovered the discovery of the third racket of the world in doubles Rajiv Ram and replaced him in a duet with Jack Juice Tommy Paul. In the end, the Italians Fabio Fognini and Simone Bolelli won. After the match, Italy’s captain Filippo Volandri told reporters about his conversation with Mardy Fish: “We’ve known each other forever, so I talked to Mardy. He agreed with me that in this format, a reliable duet is very important for success. In Italy, the best couple was Fabio and Simone, and they were much more playful than their rivals from the USA.”
In the semi-finals, a pair combination was needed to determine the winner. In the match between Australia and Croatia, Max Purcell/Jordan Thompson unexpectedly turned out to be stronger among the best couples in the world – Nikola Mektic/Mate Pavic. So Australia for the first time in 19 years reached the final of the Davis Cup. Last year in 2003, and then the Lleyton team was one of the leaders of the various Australians, and now he is the captain of the various Australians. In the match between Italy and Canada, the pair Auger-Aliassime/Pospisil coped with the duo Berrettini/Fonini. Thus, in the original final, Australia and Canada were – and this is the first time in the Davis Cup in 32 years, when both finalists are not from Europe.
And in the final, again, the pair combination did not match. Denis Shapovalov defeated Tanasi Kokkinakis in two sets, and Felix Auger-Aliassime defeated Alex de Minor. Thus, Canada became the champion of the tournament for the first time. It is curious that in 110 tournament draws, Canadians happened to be only the 16th team to win the Davis Cup. As for the Australians, for them this victory in the final was the 20th in the history of the tournament with 28 wins. It turned out that this year the Canadian men’s team also won the ATP Cup, thereby repeating the double triumph of the Russian team in 2021.