The Davis Cup draw for the final eight knockout stage has been revealed with some enticing clashes between some top nations set to take place.
Perhaps one of the most notable qualifiers into the quarter-final knockout stages are the reigning Davis Cup champions Canada. The Canadians were led by both Denis Shapovalov and Felix Auger-Aliassime en route to last year's memorable title run. They are expected to beat their next opponents Finland, but their star players lack form.
The Finns are very much an unknown quantity as they are relatively inexperienced at Davis Cup level on the biggest of stages. But perhaps that is what makes them so dangerous, and they have a Top-60 player in Emil Ruusuvuori who can cause problems to bigger names.
A mouthwatering quarter-final sees last year's finalists Australia take on the dangerous outfit of Czech Republic. The Czechs came through the group stage without dropping a rubber in both singles and doubles, with Jiri Lehecka playing a starring role to get them to this point.
Italy can call upon a plethora of established tour-level players and they will probably need to depend on their depth of squad to get the better of Netherlands in the upcoming quarter-finals. The real question is whether the likes of Matteo Berrettini and Jannik Sinner commit to the Davis Cup schedule in an already packed season of tournaments.
Lastly, Great Britain sealed their place in the last eight with a dramatic deciding doubles rubber against France, saving a couple of match points in the process. Great Britain have that togetherness and team spirit to challenge the very best countries, but will probably need to surpass the reigning US Open champion Novak Djokovic in order to progress further.
Great Britain have quality throughout much of their team, but Djokovic holds most of the cards to victory in any singles rubber he takes part in.
0 Comments