Davis Cup Dreams
The challenge for Davis Cup has been the scheduling of ties and the fact that many top players choose to focus on the regular tournaments and Grand Slams and therefore have skipped Davis Cup. This weekend, the 2008 Davis Cup quarters are pretty close to being a set of dream match-ups – the sort of matches that everyone wants when they think of Davis Cup. Eight of the top ten men are playing and all of the ties present interesting
match-ups. The Russians, i.e. Nikolay Davydenko, Mikhail Youzhny, Dmitry Tursunov, Igor Andreev, Marat Safin, play on indoor clay in Moscow against the Czech Republic team of Tomas Berdych and Radek Stepanek. Unlike other countries, Russia seems to have played the last few Davis Cup and Federation Cup ties in Moscow rather than holding them in other Russian cities. The Argentine team featuring David Nalbandian hosts the Swedish team of Jonas Bjorkman et al on clay in Buenos Aires (they also seem to play all their matches in Buenos Aires). The German team featuring fast-rising, Philipp Kohlschreiber hosts the Spanish team which includes Rafael Nadal and David Ferrer. Finally, probably the most exciting tie is the United States team of Andy Roddick, James Blake and the Bryan brothers which hosts the incredibly talented French team of Richard Gasquet, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga et al in North Carolina. Although Davis Cup may be prestigious and have a hallowed history, the excitement about these matches stems from the appeal of the top players. Therefore, the future of Davis Cup will be a function of resolving the on-going scheduling challenges in order to consistently attract the top players...
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