Well it's the Davis Cup semis and promotion ties for the World Group as well this weekend. I will try and cover as much as I can, though there are lot of other things going on at the moment.
The Hewitt sideshow is almost at an end, and the whole "will he or won't he" saga about playing in Argentina, seems to have been answered. Sure Hewitt is disliked in some sections of Argentina, but is the same in Australia and the fact that he is playing this time is a good thing and it creates some interest in a tie that in reality should not be close. Argentina with their strength in depth could easily use Guzman and Roitman and probably still win this tie.
From reports it seems Chucho will be playing the first day against Hewitt and this is a good test for him and though Hewitt might be the higher ranked player and he will use all the negative energy to fire him up. Hopefully Chucho doesn't shit himself, though he is lucky he has Mancini on the sideline. Basic facts that this match will decide whether it goes to the 3rd day, if Chucho wins the singles, then it's match over. I wonder how the crowd will react to little Lleyton. Chucho said allegedly "they must insult Hewitt, but moderately" hehehe.
Russia and the US, it seems the Yanks have been talking up their chances in this one. It would be to Argentina's advantage if they won the tie, but for some reason this is not likely to happen.
Safin plays Roddick first and Marat must be licking his chops to be able to play Roddick on his worst surface and should be able to get the right result. The Russian captain has also decided on using Youzhny against Blake and that is a commonsense decision under the circumstances that the PMK doesn't play well against these guys and they can rotate their players.
The playoffs well the Czechs have a new captain Tomas Berdych's coach Jaro Navratil who has a mullet and while they are away, they are playing on carpet and that will suit Berdych and they should make it back to the main group.
Austria and Mexico: Koubek asked to be left out of this tie to improve on his ranking at the moment and it will be good that Oli Marach, a blogger favourite to make his debut and Melzer who comes off his first ever title win on Bucharest will have a chance to improve on his very poor Davis Cup record, it's something he has struggled with for some reason.
Spain and Italy : Brazil were the last team to beat Spain at home and they had Guga playing for them and as much as I like Seppi, he is definitely no Guga and he got the job of playing Nadal, though it pains me to say this that it would be good if Volandri beat Boredo on Day 1, just to make it go to the 3rd day, but Spain will be back in the World Group.
Brazil and Sweden : I love Brazil, the parties, the beaches, the women and the like, but I will cheer for the Swedes in this one. It's great to see Vinciguerra back after all the injuries and he is the clearly the best Swedish player on clay when fit and it seems Brazil are having internal problems. Marcos Daniel hasn't been named and got the shits, Guga has come out of nowhere to play doubles and Saretta is in poor form.
Switzerland and Serbia : Federer decides to make a comeback that and Wawrinka is good enough to win a singles match, will mean that the Swiss will be back in the World Group again and it would be good to see Federer play in the 1st round for next years competition, though I wonder if he would go to Argentina say for example.
Go the Russians and the Argentines.
8 comments:
I hope the Argentines give the Aussies a beatdown and the cheap trash between Nalle and Hewitt is entertaining and livening up a lame duck tie.
Congrats Argentina!! Must be partying hard there.......
Saretta-Vinciguerra wasn't a great match technically speaking, but a very emotional one. Both players had a nervous start and exchanged many breaks in the first set, but Saretta made less mistakes and took it. Then in the second and in the third set Vinci decided to make points longer by simply hitting the ball back, and it worked because Saretta was very impatient, dispirited and making silly errors. In the 4th set it was Vinci's turn to start playing badly, Saretta took advantage of his short balls and ran away with it very comfortably. In the final set, both players decided to take less risks, so the points were longer. Vinci got an early break but Salsicha took Meligeni's advice and started playing more agressively and rushing to the net more often, so he broke back at 2-4. There was a jackass in the crowd who shouted something like "don't choke now, Flavio", lol. Anyway, Salsicha was having trouble holding his serve and Vinci got a match point that he blew quite easily by making an UE in the net. Then the crowd started pulling loudly for Saretta and he managed to win 3 straight games and the match. Later he said it was the biggest win of his life.
Oh and congrats Argentina, and hopefully Russia can join them tomorrow.
meeboBig effort from Acasuso to win against Hewitt, especially the last 2 sets it was great to see him so animated. Yes, Diego is a meatball, but there wasn't anything threatening.
The doubles Nalbandian was truly the boss there and he just lifts when he plays DC and it's great to see.
The Russians should wrap it up today and that would be great.
Thanks for that review Reanto and Vinci had a MP and blew it. It will be interesting to see whether the Toad can beat Mello, but it wouldn't surprise me if it went down to the 5th match.
Tursunov playing Roddick on clay who would have thought it? Well Tursunov came through again in the big match in 5 sets and 17-15 in the 5th, well he earned a big rest.
Roddick must be feeling like crap, but I can't say I feel too much pain for him.
No problem Nils and Soderling completely destroyed Mello today. Guga/Sa did put up a good fight but that wasn't enough against Bjorkman/Aspelin, so it's looking very good for the Swedes right now.
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