2014 Davis Cup

[Moxie]

There is another important factor to consider in the Swiss-France DC finals.

Wheres France has depth (it has so many players in top 50), Swiss is basically
reliant on the goat and a man.

If at the end of opening singles matches on friday, the score is 1-1, then
it appears that the strategy of the Swiss would be to field both Fed and Stan
in the doubles match, whereas France's doubles team can be composed of
two players who are not playing singles at all. Then the doubles match would
tire both Stan and Fed and on sunday, the rested French singles players would
have a stab at the tired Fed and Stan, leading to better odds of France winning
the tie.

If the score is 2-0 after the opening singles, most probably Fed would choose
not to play doubles and most probably Marco and Stan would play the doubles.
In that case Fed will surely win his next singles match and thus the tie (not to
mention that he will get 225 ranking points due to two singles match @75 each
and a tema bonus of 75, which he might potentially need to finish at YE #1,
if Novak or Rafa does not seal the deal before).

So, it is very very crucial for Switzerland to get off to a sound 2-0 start on Friday itself.

This is a good point, but remember that Berdy and Stepanek won for Czech Republic as a 2-man team in 2012. Granted, they played a Spanish B-squad, but Roger and Stan should be a more formidable team, and Stepanek would have been 33-ish, then. And Fedinka are a proven doubles team, should it come to that.

 

[mrzz]

Personally I dunno why there's so much talk of Federer v Tsonga or Monfils when in actual fact he'd have much more trouble imo against Simon or Benneteau. Wawrinka in any case is the weak link for the Swiss and not Federer.

Although I ultimately agree, it is always a good thing when your weak link is the current AO champion.

 

[isabelle]

The word "favorite" doesn't hold much weight when Tsonga just beat Federer at Toronto, and Monfils just had matchpoints on Federer at the US Open.

And Wawrinka has no clear edge over Tsonga, Monfils or even Gasquet (Wawrinka beat Gasquet 8-6 in the 5th set in their last meeting, after Gasquet won the first 2 sets).

I wouldn't be surprised if France win 3-0 :clap

Wow, 3/0 ? May God of tennis hear you....hope my team to win but I guess it'll be 3/2 or something like that

 

[NADAL2005RG]

Although I ultimately agree, it is always a good thing when your weak link is the current AO champion.

Wawrinka has certainly looked like a weak link since Monte Carlo.

Wawrinka is a fine player at the AO and on clay, and that is why France should go with fast indoor hardcourt to give themselves the best chance of sweeping Wawrinka.

And Federer has dropped 12 sets since Wimbledon, so he's very beatable on hardcourt :clap

 

[NADAL2005RG]

Wow, 3/0 ? May God of tennis hear you....hope my team to win but I guess it'll be 3/2 or something like that

May the spirit of Nadal guide France to glory :celeb:

 

[DarthFed]

^ The French hate Nadal (a nice quality of theirs), I'm betting they won't be praying to his spirit.

 

[Kieran]

^ The French hate Nadal (a nice quality of theirs)

Ah that's freezing cold! :laydownlaughing

 

[mrzz]

Although I ultimately agree, it is always a good thing when your weak link is the current AO champion.

Wawrinka has certainly looked like a weak link since Monte Carlo.

Wawrinka is a fine player at the AO and on clay, and that is why France should go with fast indoor hardcourt to give themselves the best chance of sweeping Wawrinka.

And Federer has dropped 12 sets since Wimbledon, so he's very beatable on hardcourt :clap

Out of 45 played. So if he keeps that terrible rate he wins both matches by 3x1.

France obviously has a shot, and a good one. But only one team has GS winners, which just by the way form an olympics gold medal doubles team.

Switzerland is obviously the favourite. YTD rankings says that, race to London rankings says that, finals record says that, tournaments won says that. This does not mean, as I said, that France does not have a shot.

 

[DarthFed]

Yeah let's just look at sets lost instead of match records since Wimbledon.

Fed 14-2
Tsonga 9-2
Monfils 7-3

That's assuming the latter two didn't play any of the weak North American tourneys (anything aside from Toronto, Cincy and USO).

 

[NADAL2005RG]

Even more important, the head2head since Wimbledon - the Davis Cup Final is a head2head competition :clap

Tsonga leads Federer 1-0
7-5, 7-6(3)

Federer leads Monfils 2-0
6-4, 4-6, 6-3
4-6, 3-6, 6-4, 7-5, 6-2

Also bare in mind that Federer will be playing the World Tour Finals just a few days before Davis Cup Final.

 

[mrzz]

^That's exactly the point.

One week before both Federer and Wawrinka would be playing the WTF, on indoor (fast) hards. Federer might the GOAT in that department, SW is no slouch in that too. France probably wont have a single (singles) player there.

With five days to rest, they won't be tired. They'll be ready. IMO fast hards is a suicidal choice of surface for them.

In their place, I would go with clay, so the transition would be hard for the Swiss, even if the French are, at least to me, not exactly a threath on that surface. Besides, long clay five setters would hurt the Swiss far more than the French, although I firmly believe that, this far down the line, people would just play their guts out and later think about being tired.

 

[GameSetAndMath]

France is most likely to have 0 players in singles of WTF. So, the french players will have at least
18 days break between their last tourney (Bercy) and DC finals.

 

[DarthFed]

^That's exactly the point.

One week before both Federer and Wawrinka would be playing the WTF, on indoor (fast) hards. Federer might the GOAT in that department, SW is no slouch in that too. France probably wont have a single (singles) player there.

With five days to rest, they won't be tired. They'll be ready. IMO fast hards is a suicidal choice of surface for them.

In their place, I would go with clay, so the transition would be hard for the Swiss, even if the French are, at least to me, not exactly a threath on that surface. Besides, long clay five setters would hurt the Swiss far more than the French, although I firmly believe that, this far down the line, people would just play their guts out and later think about being tired.

Excellent point about the surfaces. Tsonga still has an outside chance of qualifying for YEC but if he doesn't make it the whole French team would have a couple weeks to practice on clay whereas it'd be a really quick turnaround for Federer and Wawrinka.

 

[Moxie]

^That's exactly the point.

One week before both Federer and Wawrinka would be playing the WTF, on indoor (fast) hards. Federer might the GOAT in that department, SW is no slouch in that too. France probably wont have a single (singles) player there.

With five days to rest, they won't be tired. They'll be ready. IMO fast hards is a suicidal choice of surface for them.

In their place, I would go with clay, so the transition would be hard for the Swiss, even if the French are, at least to me, not exactly a threath on that surface. Besides, long clay five setters would hurt the Swiss far more than the French, although I firmly believe that, this far down the line, people would just play their guts out and later think about being tired.

Excellent point about the surfaces. Tsonga still has an outside chance of qualifying for YEC but if he doesn't make it the whole French team would have a couple weeks to practice on clay whereas it'd be a really quick turnaround for Federer and Wawrinka.

That IS a very good point. Does anyone know when France has to announce a surface by? GSM put forward his argument for tournaments that Roger should play to build up points and potentially end the year #1. I'll posit this here, in reference to that, since it's DC related, but I wonder how much Roger will be managing his schedule to protect his Davis Cup. Several of us thought that Djokovic was in 2010, and of course he was much younger. Given that there are so few brass rings for Fed to still reach out for, I'd be surprised if some scheduling decisions don't revolve around where he wants to be in his playing/training for DC.

 

[DarthFed]

^ Yeah it would be interesting to see whether he plays Paris if there is any kind of realistic hope for #1. If it's already decided by then I'd be surprised if he played Paris.

 

[Moxie]

Reasonable. But my question would also be this: if he has to choose between potentially getting the #1 again, and playing too much before DC finals, or protecting the DC, which would he choose? I'd think he'd go for making sure he was in shape for DC.

 

[DarthFed]

^ Not sure, I'd hope he'd go for #1. That's way more important in the grand scheme of things. But I bet he wants Davis Cup really, really bad

 

[GameSetAndMath]

According to odds makers, Swiss has 8/15 odds (about 65%) of winning DC
and France has 9/5 odds (about 35%). I will provide next update on odds after
France announces either the surface or the team (which will be sometime in Nov.).

 

[Moxie]

^ Not sure, I'd hope he'd go for #1. That's way more important in the grand scheme of things. But I bet he wants Davis Cup really, really bad

Since he's got more weeks at #1 than anyone, why is #1 more important? (OK, I guess, trying to stretch the lead on Sampras and CV on Nadal.) But as a personal goal, surely Davis Cup is more interesting. Contrary to popular wisdom, Roger has played a lot for Switzerland, to no benefit until this year. I'm sure it would be hugely gratifying, and frankly...fun!...for him to win them a DC. You're the Federer fan, so I respect what you would most like to see, but I'd bet that Roger's biggest goal for the rest of this year would be DC.

 

[NADAL2005RG]

Its funny how Federer keeps chasing things in 2014 and failing :lolz:
Here is a very likely scenario for Federer this year (and part of it already has happened):
- Lost the Wimbledon Final
- Had the perfect build-up to US Open but still couldn't win it, despite his main rivals not winning
- Playing more matches than anyone but not finishing #1
- Not winning the Davis Cup

When you are 33, that is an awful lot of energy used for zero reward (or only moral victories) :violins: